THE  SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 

OF 

CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 


BY 


FREDERICK  WILLIAM  ROE 

JUNIOR  DEAN    AND   ASSOCIATE    PROFESSOR   OF   ENGLISH, 
THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 


m 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 
1921 


iix 


COPYRIGHT,  I92I,  BY 
HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY,  INC. 


S  U> 


TO  MY  WIFE 
LUCY  LEWIS  ROE 


<-5l27L 


FOREWORD 

The  following  chapters  have  been  written  not  only 
as  an  interpretation  on  important. sides  of  two  great 
and  related  literary  personalities  of  the  Victorian  Era, 
but  also  as  a  contribution,  however  slight,  to  the 
history  of  social  thought  in  England  during  a  critical 
period.  The  writer  would  fain  hope  that  the  chal- 
lenging message  of  these  prophets,  delivered  in  a  time 
of  profound  transformations  in  the  structure  of 
society,  might  not  be  without  inspiration  and  guid- 
ance for  our  own  day,  a  day  even  more  disturbed  than 
theirs,  more  fraught  with  unrest  and  uncertainty, 
when  men  everywhere  are  listening  for  authentic 
voices  that  shall  speak  counsels  worthy  to  be  fol- 
lowed. For  the  social  philosophy  of  Carlyle  and 
Ruskin  is  not  a  matter  of  academic  interest  for  a  few 
leisured  scholars  and  book-lovers  alone.  It  is  rather  a 
trumpet-call  to  workers,  old  and  young,  workers  alike 
with  hand  and  with  brain, — to  put  forth  their  utmost 
efforts,  in  the  midst  of  the  present  confusion,  for  the 
purpose  of  effecting  an  ordered  revolution  of  our 
industrial  system,  so  that  civilization  in  reality  may 
become  what  for  generations  at  least  it  has  not 
been, — "the  humanization  of  man  in  society." 

The  text  of  Carlyle  used  throughout  the  volume  is 
the  text  of  the  Copyright  Edition^  published  in  Eng- 
land by  Chapman  and  Hall,  and  sold  in  America  by 
Scribner's.    The  text  of  Ruskin  is  that  of  the  Library 


vi  FOREWORD 

Edition y  edited  by  Cook  and  Wedderburn,  and  pub- 
lished by  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 

For  much  helpful  criticism,  the  author  wishes  to 
record  here  his  thanks  to  his  long-time  friend  and 
college  classmate.  Dr.  John  Gowdy,  President  of  the 
Anglo-Chinese  College,  Foochow,  China. 

F.  W.  R. 

Madison,  Wisconsin, 
December,    1920. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

The  New  Age i 

Sansculottism  and  Its  Prophet 41 

The  New  Chivalry  of  Labor 86 

Master  and  Disciple 128 

The  Apostle  of  Art  and  the  Modern  World 149 

The  Art  Impulse  in  Industry  and  the  New  Political 

Economy 179 

The  Sword  of  St.  George 204 

Heralds  of  the  Better  Order 289 

Appendix 325 

Index 331 


SOCIAL    PHILOSOPHY    OF 
CARLYLE   AND    RUSKIN 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  NEW  AGE 

"On  every  hand,  the  living  artisan  is  driven  from  his 
workshop,  to  make  room  for  a  speedier,  inanimate  one. 
The  shuttle  drops  from  the  fingers  of  the  weaver,  and  falls 
into  iron  fingers  that  ply  it  faster.  .  .  .  Coal  and  iron,  so 
long  unregardful  neighbors,  are  wedded  together;  Birming- 
ham and  Wolverhampton,  and  the  hundred  Stygian  forges, 
with  their  fire-throats  and  never-resting  sledge-hammers, 
rose  into  day." — Carlyle. 

No  discussion  of  the  social  philosophy  of  Carlyle 
and  Ruskin  can  be  understood  without  some  ac- 
count, however  brief  and  incomplete,  of  the  trans- 
formation in  modern  life  known  as  the  industrial 
revolution.  The  message  of  these  great  Victorians  to 
their  contemporaries,  their  denunciations  of  present 
evils  as  well  as  their  prophetic  vision  of  a  better  order, 
were  set  forth  against  a  background  of  social  change 
that  took  shape  before  their  eyes.  And  they  were  not 
only  witnesses  of  this  mighty  drama  of  contending 
industrial  forces;  they  could  also  well  remember 
times,  in  their  youth  or  early  manhood,  when  the 
English  landscape  was  yet  unsullied  by  factory- 
smoke,  and  when  many  an  English  cottager  lived 


2  :  \  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

amidst  beauty  and  peace  and  contentment  and  had 
not  yet  been  infected  by  the  fever  of  a  modern  manu- 
facturing town.  An  account  of  these  movements, 
therefore,  even  though  it  is  more  than  a  twice-told 
tale,  must  be  placed  before  the  reader,  as  an  indis- 
pensable setting  to  the  social  philosophy  which  he  is 
invited  to  consider.  But  it  is  a  story  fascinating  in 
itself,  fairly  epical  in  its  sweep  and  consequence,  and 
one  which  the  student  of  latter-day  problems  cannot 
know  too  well.  The  stream  of  events  upon  which  it  is 
borne  along,  moreover,  flows  onward  from  the  begin- 
ning more  unbrokenly  in  England  than  in  any  other 
country;  for  here  all  the  older  conditions  existed  in 
their  fulness,  and  here  the  newer  life  first  came  into 
being  in  its  power. 

The  man  of  to-day  cannot  easily  picture  that  older 
world  in  which  his  ancestors  lived  less  than  two 
centuries  ago.  Measured  as  history  measures  them, 
changes  have  been  so  recent  and  so  revolutionary 
that  the  England  of  the  first  Georges  seems  less 
removed  from  the  times  of  the  Pharaohs  than  from 
the  England  of  the  present,  at  least  in  nearly  every- 
thing that  is  concerned  with  the  daily  activities  of 
man.  Commerce,  manufacture,  agriculture,  travel, 
domestic  economy,  one  and  all,  were  carried  on  very 
much  as  they  had  been  carried  on  centuries  before. 
The  world  was  bigger,  cities  were  larger  and  more 
numerous,  and  the  fruits  of  civilization  were  vastly 
more  distributed,  it  is  true,  in  the  eighteenth  century 
than  in  any  previous  age;  and  with  these  changes 
there  were  corresponding  changes  also  in  the  external 
fashions  and  habits  of  life.     But  the  business  of  the 


THE  NEW  AGE  3 

home,  the  field,  and  the  market-place  was  not  essen- 
tially different  from  what  it  had  been  when  the 
heedful  Penelope  sat  in  her  hall  at  Ithaca  weaving 
the  great  web,  or  when  Jacob  drove  shrewd  bargains 
with  his  uncle  Laban  on  the  plains  of  Padan-Aram. 
In  1760 — to  take  a  convenient  date — the  old  com- 
munal system  of  agriculture  in  England  was  in  full 
swing.  Land  around  a  manor,  or  lord's  house,  was 
broken  up  into  innumerable  small  strips,  cultivated, 
fallow,  and  waste.  The  yeoman  farmers  of  those 
days,  some  of  them  tenants,  some  of  them  free- 
holders (of  whom  there  were  about  180,000)  tilled 
their  scattered  allotments,  pastured  their  cattle, 
sheep,  and  swine  on  a  common  pasture,  and  lived  in 
small  clustered  cottages.  Most  of  their  implements 
were  wooden  and  therefore  inadequate,  and  their 
methods  of  farming  were  almost  hopelessly  anti- 
quated; for  they  did  not  rotate  their  crops  nor 
fertilize,  and  they  systematically  allowed  one-third  of 
their  arable  land  to  lie  fallow  each  year.  Intervening 
between  one  community  and  another,  moreover, 
there  were  likely  to  be  immense  tracts  of  undrained 
fen,  waste  moorland,  or  forest,  which  the  enterprise 
or  necessity  of  man  had  not  yet  reclaimed  from  their 
primeval  state.  Thus  in  these  rural  centers,  lapped 
in  a  surrounding  stillness  of  which  we  to-day  can 
scarcely  dream,  these  sturdy  peasant  proprietors 
lived  from  generation  to  generation,  remote  and  slow 
no  doubt,  but,  from  all  accounts  not  like  Goldsmith's 
villagers,  for  they  were  neither  unfriended  nor  melan- 
choly. England  in  their  times  was  an  agricultural 
nation.    Her  lawmakers  were  her  landlords  and  much 


4  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

of  her  physical  and  moral  strength  was  in  her  yeo- 
men. 

The  fields  were  not  alone  the  source  of  livelihood. 
Otherwise  these  agricultural  communities  could  not 
have  been  self-sufficient.  Every  farmer's  cottage  was 
his  factory,  where  the  family,  old  and  young,  not 
only  made  their  own  candles  and  leather,  but  spun 
and  wove  their  own  cloth  from  the  wool  of  their  own 
sheep.  At  least  this  was  the  custom  in  the  beginning 
and  for  most  peasants,  although  in  some  parts  ot 
England  from  Tudor  times  onward  it  was  expanded 
into  what  has  since  been  known  as  the  "domestic 
system"  of  manufacture.  "Every  family  spun  from 
its  own  flock  the  wool  with  which  it  was  clothed," 
says  Wordsworth,  speaking  of  the  dalesmen  of  West- 
moreland; "a  weaver  was  here  and  there  found 
among  them;  and  the  rest  of  their  wants  was  supplied 
by  the  produce  of  the  yarn,  which  they  carded  and 
spun  in  their  own  houses  and  carried  to  market, 
either  under  their  arms,  or  more  frequently  on  pack- 
horses,  a  small  train  taking  their  way  weekly  down 
the  valley  or  over  the  mountains  to  the  most  com- 
modious towns."  ^  It  was  the  existence  of  these 
"commodious"  towns,  which  were  not  self-sufficient, 
as  were  the  earlier  rural  communities,  that  had 
brought  about  a  development  in  "domestic"  manu- 
facture, only  suggested  in  the  passage  just  quoted 
from  Wordsworth.  Since  the  townspeople  did  not 
make  their  own  cloth,  they  purchased  it  from  the 
farmers,  who  therefore  found  it  more  and  more  to 
their  profit  to  devote  a  larger  share  of  their  time  to 

*  Guide  to  the  Lakes,  60. 


THE  NEW  AGE  5 

spinning  and  weaving  than  to  farming,  at  least  so 
long  as  farming  went  on  in  the  old  way.  Spinning 
and  weaving,  moreover,  might  go  on  at  any  season 
and  would  furnish  employment  for  the  entire  family 
instead  of  for  a  part  only.  "A  family  of  four  adult 
persons,  with  two  children  as  winders,"  said  Dr. 
Gaskell,  in  a  book  published  in  1833,  "earned  at  the 
end  of  the  last  and  at  the  commencement  of  the 
present  century,  4/.  per  week,  when  working  ten 
hours  per  day."^ 

Thus  there  grew  up  entire  communities  of  rural 
cloth-makers,  some  of  them,  like  those  of  Yorkshire, 
where  woollens  were  made,  dating  back  to  the 
days  of  the  Tudors;  others,  like  those  of  Lancashire, 
the  home  of  cotton  manufacture,  probably  not  ex- 
tending much  back  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In 
the  prosperous  expansion  of  this  industry,  we  can 
trace  the  beginnings  of  capitalistic  enterprise  and 
division  of  labor.  A  hand-loom  weaver  would  be- 
come the  owner  of  four  or  five  looms,  which  he 
worked  with  the  assistance  of  journeymen  and 
apprentices.  His  yarn  would  be  spun  in  the  neigh- 
boring cottages,  whose  families  would  thus  be  depend- 
ent upon  him  for  their  employment.  If  the  master 
weaver  were  a  maker  of  cotton  cloth  he  would  take 
the  product  of  his  looms  thrice  a  week  to  the  market 
at  Manchester,  offering  his  goods  for  sale,  soliciting 
orders,  and  returning  with  a  quantity  of  raw  mate- 
rial for  his  spinners.  "There  was  not  a  village 
within  thirty  miles  of  Manchester,  on  the  Cheshire 
and  Derbyshire  side,"  says  Chapman,  in  his  History 

'  Manufacturing  Population  of  England,  34. 


6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

oj  the  Cotton  Manufacture^  "in  which  cotton  manu- 
facturing was  not  being  carried  on."  ^  Defoe,  in  his 
Tour  of  Great  Britain  (1727),  has  left  us  a  vivid 
picture  of  these  vanished  communities  of  workers, 
in  his  description  of  the  woollen  industry  in  the 
parish  of  Halifax,  Yorkshire,  and  of  the  great  cloth- 
market  at  Leeds,  where  the  weavers  marketed  their 
goods.  "The  nearer  we  came  to  Halifax,"  he  says, 
"we  found  the  houses  thicker,  and  the  villages 
greater,  in  every  bottom;  and  not  only  so,  but  the 
sides  of  the  hill,  which  were  very  steep  every  way, 
were  spread  with  houses;  for  the  land  being  divided 
into  small  enclosures,  from  two  acres  to  six  or  seven 
each,  seldom  more,  every  three  or  four  pieces  of  land 
had  an  house  belonging  to  them.  In  short,  after  we 
had  mounted  the  third  hill,  we  found  the  country 
one  continued  village,  though  every  way  mountain- 
ous, hardly  an  house  standing  out  of  a  speaking- 
distance  from  another;  and  as  the  day  cleared  up, 
we  could  see  at  every  house  a  tenter,  and  on  almost 
every  tenter  a  piece  of  cloth.  Kersey,  or  shalloon; 
which  are  the  three  articles  of  this  country's  labor. 
.  .  .  Then,  as  every  clothier  (/.  e.y  weaver)  must 
necessarily  keep  one  horse,  at  least,  to  fetch  home 
his  wool  and  his  provisions  from  the  market,  to 
carry  his  yarn  to  the  spinners,  his  manufacture  to 
the  fulling-mill,  and,  when  finished,  to  the  market 
to  be  sold,  and  the  like;  so  every  one  generally  keeps 
a  cow  or  two  for  his  family.  .  ".  .  Though  we  mei 
few  people  without  doors,  yet  within  we  saw  the 
houses  full  of  lusty  fellows,  some  at   the  dye-vat, 

^Manufacturing  Population  of  England,  37. 


THE  NEW  AGE  7 

some  at  the  loom,  others  dressing  the  cloths;  the 
women  and  children  carding,  or  spinning;  all  em- 
ployed from  the  youngest  to  the  oldest;  scarce  any- 
thing above  four  years  old,  but  its  hands  were  suffi- 
cient for  its  own  support.  Not  a  beggar  to  be  seen, 
nor  an  idle  person,  except  here  and  there  in  an  alms- 
house, built  for  those  that  are  antient,  and  past  work- 
ing. The  people  in  general  live  long;  they  enjoy  a 
good  air;  and  under  such  circumstances  hard  labour 
is  naturally,  attended  with  the  blessing  of  health, 
if  not  riches." 

"The  cloth-market  held  in  cloth-hall  at  Leeds," 
continues  Defoe,  "is  chiefly  to  be  admired,  as  a 
prodigy  of  its  kind,  and  perhaps  not  to  be  equalled 
in  the  world.  The  market  for  serges  at  Exeter  is 
indeed  a  wonderful  thing,  and  the  money  returned 
very  great;  but  it  is  there  only  once  a  week,  whereas 
here  it  is  every  Tuesday  and  Saturday.  The  Cloth- 
iers (/.  ^.,  weavers)  come  early  in  the  morning  with 
their  cloth;  and,  as  few  bring  more  than  one  piece, 
the  market-days  being  so  frequent,  they  go  into 
the  inns  and  public-houses  with  it,  and  there  set  it 
down.  At  about  six  o'clock  in  the  summer,  and 
about  seven  in  the  winter,  the  clothiers  being  all 
come  by  that  time,  the  market  bell  at  the  old 
chapel  by  the  bridge  rings;  upon  which  it  would  sur- 
prise a  stranger,  to  see  in  how  few  minutes,  without 
hurry,  noise,  or  the  least  disorder,  the  whole  market 
"*  is  filled,  all  the  benches  covered  with  cloth,  as  close 
"  to  one  another  as  the  pieces  can  lie  longways,  each 
proprietor  standing  behind  his  own  piece,  who  form 
a  mercantile  regiment,  as  it  were,  drawn  up  in  a 


8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

double  line;  in  as  great  order  as  a  military  one.  As 
soon  as  the  bell  has  ceased  ringing,  the  factors  and 
buyers  of  all  sorts  enter  the  hall,  and  walk  up  and 
down  between  the  rows,  as  their  occasions  direct. 
Most  of  them  have  papers  with  patterns  sealed  on 
them,  in  their  hands;  the  colours  of  which  they  watch, 
by  holding  them  to  the  cloths  they  think  they  agree 
to.  When  they  have  pitched  upon  their  cloth,  they 
lean  over  to  the  clothier,  and,  by  a  whisper,  in  the 
fewest  words  imaginable,  the  price  is  stated;  one 
asks,  the  other  bids,  and  they  agree  or  disagree  in  a 
moment.  .  .  .  The  buyers  generally  walk  up  and 
down  twice  on  each  side  of  the  rows,  and  in  little 
more  than  half  an  hour  all  the  business  is  done.  In 
less  than  half  an  hour  you  will  perceive  the  cloth 
begin  to  move  off,  the  clothier  taking  it  upon  his 
shoulder  to  carry  to  the  merchant's  house.  At  about 
half  an  hour  after  eight  the  market  bell  rings  again, 
upon  which  the  buyers  immediately  disappear,  and 
the  cloth  which  remains  unsold  is  carried  back  to  the 
inn.  Thus  you  see  lo  or  20,000/.  worth  of  cloth, 
and  sometimes  much  more,  bought  and  sold  in  little 
more  than  an  hour,  the  laws  of  the  market  being 
the  most  strictly  observed  that  I  ever  saw  in  any 
market  in  England."  ^ 

Other  accounts  of  these  "golden  times  of  manu- 
facture," as  Dr.  Gaskell  called  them,  it  would  be 
possible  to  give  from  various  extant  sources.  For 
example,  one  of  Ruskin's  correspondents  in  the  days 
of  Fors  Clavigera  pictures  the  idyllic  past  that  he 
knew  at  Wakefield  before  the  advent  of  machinery 

•  Defoe,  Tout  of  Great  Britain,  III,  155-6  and  13 1-2. 


THE  NEW  AGE  9 

and  the  factory-system;  and  his  picture  sharply 
contrasts  the  brightness  of  the  old  times  with  the 
blackness  of  the  new.  "There  was  no  railway  then," 
he  says,  "only  the  Doncaster  coach  careering  over 
the  Bridge  with  a  brave  sound  of  horn;  fields  and 
farmsteads  stood  where  the  Kirkgate  station  is; 
where  the  twenty  black  throats  of  the  foundry  belch 
out  flame  and  soot,  there  were  only  strawberry 
grounds  and  blossoming  pear-orchards,  among  which 
the  throstles  and  blackbirds  were  shouting  for  glad- 
ness. .  .  .  On  the  chapel  side  there  was  the  soft 
green  English  landscape,  with  woods  and  spires  and 
halls,  and  the  brown  sails  of  boats  silently  moving 
among  the  flowery  banks;  on  the  town  side  there 
were  picturesque  traffic  and  life;  the  thundering 
weir,  the  wide  still  water  beyond,  the  big  dark-red 
granaries,  with  balconies  and  archways  to  the  water, 
and  the  lofty  white  mills  grinding  out  their  cheering 
music.  But  there  were  no  worse  shapes  than  honest, 
dusty  millers'  men,  and  browned  boatmen,  decent 
people.  I  can  remember  how  clean  the  pavement 
used  to  look  there,  and  at  Doncaster.  Both  towns 
are  incredibly  dirty  now.  .  .  .  Market  day  used 
to  be  a  great  event  for  us  all.  I  wish  that  you  could 
have  seen  the  handsome  farmers'  wives  ranged 
round  the  church  walls,  with  their  baskets  of  apricots 
and  cream  cheese,  before  reform  came.  .  .  .  You 
might  have  seen,  too,  the  pretty  cottagers'  daoghters, 
with  their  bunches  of  lavender  and  baskets  o(  fruit, 
or  heaps  of  cowslips  and  primroses  for  the  wine  and 
vinegar  Wakefield  housewives  prided  themselves 
upon.     On  certain  days  they  stood  to  be  hired  as 


lo  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

maid-servants,  and  were  prized  in  the  country  round 
as  neat,  clean,  modest-spoken  girls.  I  do  not  know 
where  they  are  gone  now, — I  suppose  to  the  facto- 
ries. .  .  .  Tradespeople  were  different,  too,  in  old 
Wakefield.  They  expected  to  live  with  us  all  their 
lives;  they  had  high  notions  of  honor  as  tradesmen, 
and  they  and  their  customers  respected  each  other. 
They  prided  themselves  on  the  'wear'  of  their  goods. 
If  they  had  passed  upon  the  housewives  a  piece  of 
sized  calico  or  shoddy  flannel,  'they  would  have 
heard  of  it  for  years  after.  Now  the  richer  ladies 
go  to  Leeds  or  Manchester  to  make  purchases;  the 
town  tradesmen  are  soured  and  jealous.  They  put 
up  big  plate-glass  fronts,  and  send  out  flaming  bills; 
but  one  does  not  know  where  to  get  a  piece  of  sound 
calico  or  stout  linen,  well  spun  and  well  woven."  ^ 

The  more  characteristic  aspects  of  this  attractive 
picture  were  no  doubt  reproduced  in  hundreds  of 
towns  all  over  the  country.  England  had  a  foreign 
trade  then,  as  she  had  had  in  the  days  of  Chaucer, 
but  commerce  and  manufacturing  in  the  modern 
sense  were  unknown.  Her  people  lived  and  worked 
under  the  old,  old  theory  that  each  community  was  to 
be  self-sustaining.  Relations  therefore  were  far  less 
international  than  national,  and  even  more  parochial 
than  national.  Villages  and  towns  lived  largely  unto 
themselves,  shut  out  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  most 
of  their  inhabitants  never  seeing  beyond  the  horizon 
that  circled  their  ancestral  homes.  •  For  in  those  days 
there  were  few  roads,  and  those  few  were  almost 
hopelessly  bad.    According  to  Adam  Smith,  it  took 

1  Ruskin,  Works,  XXVIII,  380-2. 


THE  NEW  AGE  11 

a  broad-wheeled  wagon,  attended  by  two  men  and 
drawn  by  eight  horses,  about  six  weeks  to  carry  and 
bring  back  between  London  and  Edinburgh  four  tons 
weight  of  goods. ^  It  took  a  coach  longer  to  go  the 
same  distance  than  it  now  takes  a  liner  to  go  from 
Liverpool  to  New  York.  In  the  summer  season  a 
journey  by  coach  from  London  to  Manchester  occu- 
pied two  days.  Travel,  therefore,  was  infrequent  and 
only  for  the  well-to-do.  Traders  went  from  com- 
munity to  community  on  horseback,  or  afoot,  and 
bartered  their  goods  on  market  days  or  at  periodical 
fairs,  as  did  the  voluble  Bob  Jakin  in  Mill  on  the 
Floss.  The  beginnings  of  capitalistic  enterprise  at  this 
period  there  were,  as  we  have  seen,  but  the  captain 
of  industry  who  systematically  exploited  his  labor, 
purchasing  it  in  the  cheapest  market,  and  who  de- 
veloped his  industry  in  the  British  spirit  of  individ- 
ualism had  not  yet  come.  Nor  had  the  wage-earner, 
nor  the  factory-system.  It  was  not  an  ideal  world, 
far  from  it;  and  there  were  communities,  such  as  the 
weavers  of  coarse  cloth  at  Oldham,  Lancashire, 
among  whom  conditions  were  wretched.  But  take  it 
all  in  all,  the  world  of  those  days  was  a  world  of  con- 
tented toilers,  for  the  most  part  independent  and 
prosperous,  owning  their  own  wheels  and  looms,  and 
on  Sundays  regularly  attending  the  village  church, 
because  like  Job  "they  feared  God,  and  eschewed 
evil;" — a  world,  be  it  said,  which  furnished  the  quiet 
background  in  so  much  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  and 
to  which  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  and  Morris  reverted  so 
cfren  a  half  century  and  more  afterward. 

>  Wealth  of  Nations,  I,  20. 


12  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Then  as  if  by  magic  came  the  flying  shuttle,  the 
spinning-jenny,  and  the  power-loom,  followed  rapidly 
by  the  application  of  steam  to  all  the  uses  of  industry 
through  new  and  marvelous  machinery.  Then  came 
also  a  revolution  in  travel  and  transportation  by 
means  of  canals,  Macadam's  turnpikes,  railroads, 
and  steamships.  By  a  kind  of  simultaneous  collabo- 
ration of  wonder-working  forces,  a  new  world  sprang 
into  being,  and  the  old  world  vanished  like  ghost  at 
cock-crow.^  "The  spinning-wheel  and  the  hand-loom 
were  silenced,  and  manufactures  were  transferred 
from  scattered  villages  and  quiet  homesteads  to 
factories  and  cities  filled  with  noise.  Villages  became 
towns,  towns  became  cities,  and  factories  started  up 
on  barren  heath  and  deserted  waste."  Within  fifty 
years  English  industry  changed  from  medieval  or 
semi-medieval  to  modern  conditions.  A  new  order  of 
population  was  created.  Commerce  and  manu- 
facture went  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds.  And  by 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  England  became 
the  wealthiest  nation  in  the  world,  and  her  people 
found  themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  gigantic  industrial 

*  It  is  interesting  to  note  the  close  sequence  of  dates  respecting  the 
principal  inventions  and  improvements:  the  fly-shuttle  by  John  Kay, 
1733;  the  spinning-jenny  by  Hargraves,  1764;  the  water-frame  by 
Arkwright,  1769;  the  "mule"  by  Crompton,  1779;  Watt's  steam-engine, 
first  used  to  run  spinning  machines,  1785;  Cartwright's  power-loom, 
1785;  smelting  iron  by  coal,  1 740-1750;  application  of  steam  to  blast 
furnaces,  1788;  Davy's  safety  lamp,  1815;  Duke  of  Bridgewater's  canal, 
1759;  improvement  of  roads  and  bridge-building  under  Telford  and 
Macadam,  1815-1830;  first  railroad,  Stockton  to  Darlington,  1825; 
Fulton's  Clermont,  from  New  York  to  Albany,  1807;  the  Comet,  first 
passenger  steamer  in  Europe,  launched  on  Clyde,  1812;  Great  Western, 
built  by  Cunard  Company,  the  first  steamship  to  cross  the  Atlantic, 
1838. 


THE  NEW  AGE  13 

system,  with  its  myriad  interests  and  its  multitudi- 
nous problems. 

A  few  figures  may  assist  the  reader's  imagination  to 
grasp  the  magnitude  of  these  changes.  The  popula- 
tion of  England  and  Wales  in  1750  is  estimated  to 
have  been  6,517,035;  by  1821  it  had  nearly  doubled. 
The  increase  in  the  population  of  England  and  Wales 
from  1770  to  1 801  was  27^^%;  from  1801  to  1831  it 
was  56-3/5%.^  The  manufacturing  towns  expanded 
enormously.  From  1801  to  1831,  the  population  of 
Glasgow  increased  161%,  Manchester,  151%,  Liver- 
pool, 138%,  Birmingham,  90%.-  "The  population  of 
Lancashire,  which  is  the  great  center  of  the  cotton 
trade,"  says  Dr.  Gaskell,  "in  1700,  was  166,200;  in 
1750,  297,400;  in  1801,  672,731;  in  181 1,  828,309; 
in  1821,  1,052,859;  in  1831,  1,335,800."^  In  1700 
the  agricultural  population  was  double  that  of  the 
manufacturing  population;  by  1830  the  situation  was 
reversed.  In  18 13  there  were  2,400  power  looms  in 
use  in  Great  Britain;  in  1835  there  were  116,801.'*  In 
1760  in  the  cotton  trade  3,000,000  pounds  of  cotton 
were  manufactured;  in  1833,  303,656,837  pounds 
were  produced.^  "One  spinner,"  says  Dr.  Gaskell, 
writing  in  1836,  "produces  as  much  in  one  day  now 
as  would  have  required  a  year's  time  to  produce  a 
century  ago."  "  In  1787  there  were  41  cotton  mills  in 
Lancashire  alone;  a  half  century  later,  there  were  157, 

*  Porter,  The  Progress  of  the  Nation,  13. 

*  Gaskell,  Manufacturing  Population  of  England,  220. 

*  Ibid.,  220. 

*  Chapman,  Lancashire  Cotton  Industry,  28. 

*  Gaskell,  Artisans  and  Machinery,  329. 
•Gaskell,  Artisans  and  Machinery,  329. 


14  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

with  operatives  estimated  at  137,000.^  Perhaps 
nothing  shows  more  impressively  the  effect  of  the 
new  order  of  things  than  the  growth  in  the  importa- 
tion of  raw  cotton:  in  18 15  it  amounted  to  82  milHon 
pounds;  in  1835  it  was  318  milhon  pounds;  in  1851,659 
million  pounds. ^  "The  Briarean  arms  of  the  steam- 
engine"  reached  into  every  industry  and  "British 
science  and  British  skill"  made  England,  in  the  popu- 
lar phrase  of  the  Victorian  era,  the  workshop  of  the 
world.  The  soldiers  of  Napoleon  who  marched  to 
Moscow  wore  clothing  made  of  cloth  from  English 
looms,  and  manufactured  goods  from  English  factories 
were  carried  by  British  merchantmen  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth.  It  is  little  wonder  that  many  a  contempo- 
rary writer  should  hail  the  new  inventions  as  a  special 
dispensation  of  providence  to  British  genius,  and 
should  describe  the  new  times  in  language  that  sounds 
ludicrously  extravagant  to-day,  even  to  American 
ears.  The  transformations  wrought  upon  society 
were  indeed  more  revolutionary,  both  actually  and 
potentially,  than  any  which  the  world  had  hitherto 
seen.  The  new  distributions  of  property,  the  rapid 
accumulations  of  private  fortunes,  the  widespread 
application  of  machinery  and  the  consequent  enor- 
mous multiplication  of  the  conveniences  and  luxuries 
of  life,  the  disappearance  of  some  classes  and  the 
emergence  of  others,  together  with  the  deeper  changes 
in  the  habits  and  thoughts  of  a  whole  people, — all 
these  were  circumstances  sufficient  to  awaken  the 
attention  of  thoughtful  men  to  the  fact  that  a  new 

*  Podmore,  Life  of  Owen,  I,  40. 

2  Slater,  The  Making  of  Modern  England,  128. 


THE  NEW  AGE  15 

order  of  life  had  come  into  being,  bringing  with  it  new 
conditions  and  new  problems  such  as  were  destined 
to  make  rough  sailing  for  the  ship  of  state  in  the  years 
ahead.  ■ 

For  the  source  of  England's  wealth  was  likewise  the 
source  of  her  most  troublesome  problems  and  her 
darkest  conditions,  the  factory  system.  In  the  early 
days  of  machinery,  before  the  application  of  steam  to 
manufacturing  and  when  the  power-loom  was  oper- 
ated by  the  force  of  water,  factories  sprang  up  in  the 
country  districts  wherever  a  stream  afforded  suffi- 
cient power  to  turn  the  wheels.  A  little  later,  as 
soon  as  it  was  demonstrated  that  the  power-loom 
could  be  profitably  run  by  steam,  factories  were 
transferred  to  towns,  where  more  workers  lived  or 
could  live  and  where  goods  could  be  marketed  more 
readily  and  more  cheaply.  It  was  not  long  before 
these  factory  towns  presented  an  appearance  with 
which  the  world  of  to-day  is  only  too  familiar, — myr- 
iads of  rickety  tenement  buildings,  housing  a  vast 
and  crowded  population  of  operatives  with  their 
families, — acres  of  factories,  most  of  them  hastily 
constructed  and  badly  ventilated,  and  thrusting  into 
the  sky  a  forest  of  chimneys  from  which  there  poured 
a  never-ceasing  cloud  of  smoke  that  blackened  the 
country  for  miles  around.  The  population  in  these 
industrial  centers  grew  rapidly  on  its  own  account, 
but  it  was  augmented  from  two  classes  outside,  the 
rural  cloth-workers  of  the  old  order  who  were  being 
thrown  out  of  employment  because  of  the  introduc- 
tion of  new  machinery,  and  the  small  farmers  who 
were  forced  to  leave  their  farms  in  consequence  of 


i6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  movement  in  agriculture  known  as  enclosures.* 
How  different  was  this  new  army  of  workers  from  the 
old!  Instead  of  an  independent  people,  living  mostly 
in  the  country,  owning  their  own  cottages  and  tools, 
and  tilling  their  own  small  farms  or  gardens,  there 
grew  up  a  vast  aggregation  of  dependent  city  toilers, 
— men,  women,  and  children, — tenanting  rented 
houses,  working  in  factories  not  their  own,  and 
operating  machinery  that  required  less  and  less  skill 
and  more  and  more  merely  monotonous  "tending." 
The  day  of  the  wage-earner  had  come.  The  day  of 
the  exploiting  captain  of  industry  had  come  also. 
Sprung  in  most  cases  from  the  ranks  of  operatives, 
knowing  little  or  nothing  of  what  went  on  beyond  the 
four  walls  of  his  factory,  frequently  illiterate,  usually 
brutal  and  debased,  the  typical  factory-owner  of  the 
first  quarter  or  so  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
industrious    and    shrewd    enough    to    accumulate    a 

^  The  old  system  of  farming,  described  in  the  previous  pages,  was 
found  to  be  wasteful  and  backward  in  the  extreme.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  a  few  progressive  landlords,  like  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham, 
the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Lord  Townshend,  and  even  George  III  himself, 
began  experimenting  in  new  crops,  new  methods  of  rotation,  drainage, 
etc.  They  soon  demonstrated  the  great  value  of  these  improvements. 
But  it  was  found  that  the  new  farming  could  not  proceed  without  the 
overthrow  of  the  old.  Hence,  by  act  of  parliament  or  by  coercive  act 
of  landlord,  there  went  on  from  1760  to  1843  a  readjustment  known  as 
enclosures.  The  small  parcels  of  disconnected  open  land  and  the  "com- 
mons" were  re-apportioned  into  larger  groups  of  enclosed  lands,  held  by 
fewer  farmers  under  longer  leases,  or  independentlJ^  The  movement 
which,  considered  in  its  broad  aspects,  is  accurately  described  by  Arthur 
Young  as  "not  merely  beneficial  to  the  individual"  but  "of  the  most 
extensive  national  advantage,"  (A  Six  Month's  Tour  through  the  North 
of  England,  I,  258)  was  accompanied  with  great  distress  to  hundreds 
of  the  small,  unprogressive  farmers,  who  were  now  compelled  to  become 
either  dependent  farm-laborers  or  to  join  the  rising  army  of  the  pro- 
letariat in  the  factory  towns. 


THE  NEW  AGE  17 

fortune  rapidly,  whereby  he  could  live  in  newly- 
built  mansions  furnished  with  all  the  tawdry  acces- 
sories that  money  could  buy.  His  position  and  his 
wealth  gave  him  vast  power,  often  exercised  under 
the  grossest  forms  of  tyranny  over  the  hordes  of 
workers  dependent  upon  him;  so  that  he  amply 
deserved  the  contemptuous  nickname  with  which 
Carlyle  dubbed  him, — Plugson  of  Undershot,  the 
modern    buccaneer.^ 

The  condition  of  the  wage-earners  operating  under 
Plugson  and  his  fellow  masters  has  been  the  theme  of 
novelists,  prophets,  reformers,  and  utopia-builders 
the  world  over.  It  would  be  difficult  indeed  to  find 
in  the  annals  of  history  a  more  dismal  or  distressing 
page  than  the  one  upon  which  is  written  the  story  of 
the  early  factory  workers.  The  factories  themselves, 
equipped  with  unprotected  machinery  and  enclosing 
a  damp  over-heated  atmosphere,  were  in  the  majority 
of  cases  wholly  unfit  for  their  swarming  populations. 
They  were  of  course  unsanitary  and  uninspected,  and 
the  air  in  them,  was  filled  with  floating  particles  of 
cotton  "fluff."  Far  the  greater  number  of  operatives 
were  women  and  children,  since  adult  male  labor  was 
not  needed  to  tend  the  machines.  Child-labor  was 
not  only  better  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  work;  it 
was  cheaper.  In  the  earlier  period  before  the  appren- 
tice system  was  abandoned,  pauper  children  were  re- 

^  The  attitude  of  the  mill-owner  towards  his  operatives  is  well  sug- 
gested in  the  remarks  of  a  manufacturer  who  sold  cloth  to  Francis  Place, 
the  famous  Charing  Cross  tailor  and  radical  reformer.  "Damn  their 
eyes,"  said  he  to  Place,  "what  need  you  care  about  them?  How  could 
I  sell  you  goods  so  cheap  if  I  cared  anything  about  them?"  "I  showed 
him  the  door,"  says  Place,  "and  never  purchased  any  of  his  goods  after- 
wards."   (Wallas,  Life  of  Francis  Place,  141.) 


i8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

cruited  from  the  workhouses  and  foundling  hospitals 
of  London  and  other  large  cities,  and  were  literally- 
sold  into  slavery  to  the  mill-owners,  whose  brutal 
overseers  were  wont  to  treat  them  in  ways  too 
shocking  to  describe.^  Matters  were  scarcely  im- 
proved when  apprentice-children  were  withheld,  or 
v/hen  conditions  under  which  they  were  allowed  by 
the  magistrates  to  work  were  restricted,  and  "free" 
children  were  employed;  for  the  reason  that  parents, 
in  their  ignorance  and  poverty,  seemed  glad  enough 
to  have  the  meager  wages  of  the  household  eked  out 
by  the  pittance  which  their  children  might  earn. 
Probably  the  most  vivid — one  should  perhaps  say 
lurid— account  of  these  early  factory  "hands"  ever 
written  is  that  by  Frederick  Engels,  life-long  friend 
and  co-worker  of  Karl  Marx,  in  his  book  called  The 
Condition  of  the  Working-Class  in  England  in  i8^. 
Describing  child-labor,  he  refers  to  the  parliament- 
ary Factories'  Inquiry  Commission  of  1833  in  these 
words:  "The  report  of  the  Central  Commission  re- 
lates that  the  manufacturers  began  to  employ  chil- 
dren rarely  of  five  years,  often  of  six,  very  often  of 
seven,  usually  of  eight  to  nine  years;  that  the  work- 
ing-day often  lasted  fourteen  to  sixteen  hours,  ex- 
clusive of  meals  and  intervals;  that  the  manufacturers 
permitted  overlookers  to  flog  and  maltreat  children, 
and  often   took  an   active  part  in  so  doing   them- 

^  There  were  exceptions,  perhaps  the  most  notable  one  being  the  case 
of  Mr.  Dale  of  New  Lanark  Mills,  on  the  river  Clyde.  Mr.  Dale  (father- 
in-law  of  Robert  Owen,  afterwards  himself  proprietor  of  New  Lanark) 
took  over  some  500  pauper  children,  whom  he  clothed,  fed,  and  lodged, 
and  for  whom  he  established  a  night-school.  (Podmore,  Life  of  Owen, 
h  73) 


THE  NEW  AGE  19 

selves."  '  As  proof  of  his  assertion  that  the  active 
work  of  the  mills  was  done  by  women  and  children, 
Engels  quotes  figures  from  a  speech  of  Lord  Ashley 
made  in  support  of  the  Ten  Hours'  Bill  which  Lord 
Ashley  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  in 
1844:  "Of  419,560  factory  operatives  of  the  British 
Empire  in  1839,  192,887,  or  nearly  half,  were  under 
eighteen  years  of  age,  and  242,296  of  the  female  sex, 
of  whom  112,192  were  less  than  eighteen  years  old. 
...  In  the  cotton  factories,  56^4  per  cent.;  in  the 
woollen  mills,  69^  percent.;  in  the  flax-spining  mills, 
70 j^  per  cent,  of  all  operatives  are  of  the  female  sex."^ 
If  factory  conditions  were  bad,  the  home  con- 
ditions of  these  operatives  were  inexpressibly  worse. 
Where  all  accounts  agree,  one  should  no  doubt  dis- 
miss his  skepticism;  and  yet  the  often-told  tale  of 
human  wretchedness  and  human  degradation  in 
the  tenement  districts  of  the  manufacturing  towns 
almost  passes  belief,  even  for  the  sophisticated 
student  of  slum  conditions.  "From  some  recent 
inquiries  on  the  subject,"  says  Gaskell,  "it  would 
appear  that  upward  of  20,000  individuals  live 
in  cellars  in  Manchester  alone."  '    "A  full  fifth  of 

^  Ibid.,  142.  Probably  the  only  place  where  "model"  factory  con- 
ditions were  to  be  seen  was  at  the  New  Lanark  mills  under  the  manage- 
ment of  Robert  Owen.  The  weekly  wages  there  for  boys  under  l8  were 
4$.  5d.;  for  women,  6s.;  for  men,  9s.  iid.  Piece-workers  received  from 
25  to  50  per  cent.  more.  Owen  fixed  the  minimum  age  at  10,  and  allowed 
children  from  5  to  10  to  attend  his  school  free  of  charge.  For  some  time 
the  hours  of  labor  were  14  per  day.  "It  was  not  until  January,  1816, 
that  he  was  enabled  to  reduce  the  hours  to  12  a  day,  with  i  and  ^  hours 
for  meals,  leaving  10  and  ^  hours  for  actual  work."  (Podmore,  Life  of 
Owen,  I,  92.) 

*  Manufacturing  Population  of  England,  138. 


20  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  population,  more  than  45,000  human  beings, 
of  Liverpool,"  says  Engels,  "live  in  cellar  dwell- 
ings." ^  He  found  the  situation  as  bad  or  worse  in 
other  cities.  Even  at  this  distance  of  time  one  can 
scarcely  read  without  a  shudder  the  descriptions  of 
endless  ranges  of  houses  along  the  "unpaved  and 
unsewered"  back  streets  of  the  industrial  centers, 
into  which  the  tired  throngs  of  toilers  poured  at 
the  end  of  one  day,  and  from  which  they  emerged 
at  the  dawn  of  the  next.  These  rickety  hovels  were 
not  only  filthy  and  over-crowded;  they  were  centers 
where  the  common  decencies  of  life  were  hardly 
known,  or  if  they  were  known  were  not  practiced. 
Here  vice  and  drunkenness,  crime  and  poverty, 
flourished  in  their  natural  habitat  and  throve  as 
weeds  thrive  in  a  neglected  barnyard.-  Readers  of 
Dickens  and  Disraeli,  Mrs.  Gaskell  and  Kingsley, 
Bulwer-Lytton  and  Charles  Reade — to  mention  only 
the  most  famous  names — will  recall  how  vividly 
these  writers  have  set  forth  the  state  of  society  that 
followed  in  the  wake  of  the  industrial  revolution. 
One  institution  after  another  of  that  day,  the  church, 

1  Condition  of  the  JVorking-Class,  36. 

2  For  prostitution  and  crime  the  reader  is  referred  to  Engels.  On 
drunkenness  he  says:  "Sheriff  AHson  asserts  that  in  Glasgow  some 
thirty  thousand  workingmen  get  drunk  every  Saturday  night,  and  the 
estimate  is  certainly  not  exaggerated;  and  that  in  that  city  in  1S30,  one 
house  in  twelve,  and  in  1840,  one  house  in  ten,  was  a  public-house.  .  .  . 
Gaskell  estimates  secret  distilleries  in  Manchester  alone  at  more  than 
a  hundred.  .  .  .  When  one  has  seen  the  extent  of  intemperance  among 
the  workers  in  England,  one  readily  believes  Lord  Ashley's  statement 
that  this  class  annually  expends  something  like  twenty-five  million 
pounds  sterling  upon  intoxicating  liquor."  {Condition  of  the  JVorking- 
Class,  126-128.)  As  to  poverty  we  have  the  testimony  of  the  historian 
of  the  period:  in  England  in  1815  "nearly  one  person  in  every  eleven 
of  the  population  was  a  pauper."    (Walpole,  History  of  England,  I,  186.) 


THE  NEW  AGE  21 

the  schools,  the  prisons,  the  workhouses,  the  fac- 
tories, they  held  up  to  scorn  and  just  condemnation; 
one  class  of  operatives  after  another,  the  miners, 
the  iron-workers,  the  textile-workers,  the  tailors, 
they  introduced  into  their  pages,  together  with  all 
the  attendant  evils  in  the  industrial  system, — sweat- 
ing, poisoning,  "rattening,"  strikes,  and  the  whole 
gamut  of  labor  troubles.  The  distress  of  the  iron- 
workers in  the  cutlery  trades, — the  employment 
of  children  in  mines — those  subterranean  midgets 
who  hauled  tubs  of  coal  from  twelve  to  sixteen  hours 
a  day, — the  tyranny  of  the  "truck"  system  (/.  ^., 
payment  for  wages  in  goods  from  the  company 
store,  with  short  weight,  higher  prices,  adulteration, 
and  falsification  of  account), — the  reduction  of 
wages  by  petty  underhand  means  such  as  fines  and 
rebates, — the  work  of  the  factory  girls  begun  so 
early  in  the  morning  that  watchmen  were  engaged 
by  districts  to  tap  on  the  windows  in  order  to 
awaken  them, — the  ever-increasing  irritation  and 
distrust  between  masters  and  men, — and  around  all, 
like  the  coils  of  a  venomous  reptile,  the  stretch  of 
dilapidated  tenements  with  their  countless  holes  and 
corners  where  the  Fagins  and  Quilps  held  sway: — it 
was  the  telling  of  these  and  other  facts  like  them  that 
made  the  mid-Victorian  novel  a  powerful  instrument 
for  reform.^ 

'The  treatment  of  the  industrial  revolution  by  the  novelists  is  a 
chapter  or  a  book  by  itself.  The  best  accounts  are  in  the  following: 
Bulwer-Lytton's  Paul  Clifford,  Disraeli's  Sybily  Dickens's  Oliver  Twist 
and  Hard  Times,  Kingsley's  Yeast  and  Alton  Locke,  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
Mary  Barton  and  North  and  South,  Charles  Reade's  Never  Too  Late  to 
Mend  and  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place.  These  novels  present  conditions, 
roughly  speaking,  before  1850.     Mrs.  Gaskell  comes  nearer  to  the  actual 


22  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

But  the  workers  did  not  wait  for  the  noveHsts 
to  make  known  their  conditions  to  the  world.  It 
was  inevitable  that  their  own  growing  sense  of 
distress  should  lead  to  protests  and  rebellion.  Their 
attitude  of  mind*  is  nowhere  better  described  than 
in  the  words  of  Francis  Place,  whose  life  in  the  bor- 
ough of  Westminster,  London,  was  passed  in  the 
center  of  radicalism  and  agitation.  "A  great  mass 
of  our  unskilled  and  but  little  skilled  labourers 
(among  whom  are  the  handloom  weavers),  and  a 
very  considerable  number  of  our  skilled  labourers," 
he  says,  "are  in  poverty,  if  not  in  actual  misery; 
a  large  portion  of  them  have  been  in  a  state  of  pov- 
erty and  great  privation  all  their  lives.  They  are 
neither  ignorant  of  their  condition  nor  reconciled 
to  it.  They  live  amongst  others  who  are  better  off 
than  themselves,  with  whom  they  compare  them- 
selves; and  they  cannot  understand  why  there 
should  be  so  great  a  difference,  why  others  who 
work  no  more  or  fewer  hours  than  themselves  at 
employment  not  requiring  more  actual  exertion, 
and  in  many  cases  occupying  fewer  hours  in  the  day, 
should  be  better  paid  than  they  are,  and  they  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  difference  is  solely  caused 
by  oppression — oppression  of  bad  laws  and  avari- 
cious employers.  To  escape  from  this  state  is  with 
them   of  paramount    importance.      Among   a    vast 

lives  and  thoughts  of  the  working  people;  Reade  offers  most  definite  solu- 
tions; Kingsley  describes  the  humbug  of  the  estabhshed  religion  and 
appHes  the  remedy  of  Christian  sociaUsm;  Dickens  (without  suggesting 
specific  cures)  is  the  most  vivid  of  all  in  his  pictures  of  the  haunts  of 
vice  and  villainy  in  the  cities.  A  valuable  study  of  the  whole  field  is  to  be 
found  in  Le  Roman  Social  en  Angleterre,  by  Cazamian,  1904. 


THE  NEW  AGE  23 

multitude  of  these  people  not  a  day,  scarcely  an 
hour,  can  be  said  to  pass  without  some  circumstance, 
some  matter  exciting  reflection,  occurring  to  remind 
them  of  their  condition,  which  (notwithstanding 
they  have  been  poor  and  distressed  from  their  in- 
fancy, and  however  much  they  may  at  times  be 
cheerful)  they  scarcely  ever  cease,  and  never  for  a 
long  period  cease,  to  feel  and  to  acknowledge  to 
themselves  with  deep  sensations  of  anguish  their 
deplorable  condition."'  However  ignorant  and 
debased  they  might  be,  the  unorganized  workers 
were  thus  conscious  of  oppression  and  sullenly 
antagonistic  toward  their  oppressors,  and  they 
therefore  resorted  to  merhodb  ot  personal  violence 
and  wanton  lawlessness  such  as  make  the  earlier 
history  of  industrialism  a  shameful  record  of  crime 
and  cruelty.  Dynamiting,  incendiarism,  shooting, 
throwing  of  vitriol,  persecutions  of  inventors  of 
new  machinery,  persecutions  of  "knobsticks," — 
these  and  other  acts  of  barbarity  were  then  the 
invariable  concomitant  of  industry.  For  the  first 
twenty-five  years  of  the  century,  or  before  the  re- 
peal of  the  Combination  Laws,  the  revolt  of  labor 
was  individualistic  rather  than  collective.  Gradually 
the  scattered  masses  drew  together  into  organizations, 
at  first  secretly  and  often  rather  for  the  purposes 
of  mutual  benefit  than  for  united  effort  against 
their  employers.  Then  the  era  of  trade  unions 
and  strikes  began.  It  dawned  upon  the  benighted 
consciousness  of  the  proletariat  that  there  was  a 
mighty  power  in  combination.    Up  and  down  Great 

'  Wallas,  Lije  of  Place,  382. 


24  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Britain  unions  were  formed,  and  rebellion  now  be- 
came organized,  persistent,  and  militant.  "The 
incredible  frequency  of  these  strikes,"  says  Engels, 
"proves  best  of  all  to  what  extent  the  social  war 
has  broken  out  all  over  England.  No  week  passes, 
scarcely  a  day,  indeed,  in  which  there  is  not  a  strike 
in  some  direction."^  Despite  the  bitterness  and  the 
persistence  of  the  struggle,  however,  labor's  fight 
during  the  second  quarter  of  the  century  was  nearly 
always  a  losing  one.  "In  council  they  are  ideal- 
ists," say  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb,  "dreaming  of  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth,  humanitarians,  education- 
alists, socialists,  moralists:  in  battle  they  are  still 
the  struggling,  half-emancipated  serfs  of  1825, — 
armed  only  with  the  rude  weapons  of  the  strike 
and  boycott;  sometimes  feared  and  hated  by  the 
propertied  classes;  sometimes  merely  despised;  al- 
ways oppressed,  and  miserably  poor."  ^ 

How  could  the  situation  be  different  when  the 
odds  against  the  laboring  classes  were  so  overwhelm- 
ing? All  the  effective  weapons  belonged  to  the 
other  side, — political  power,  education,  the  law 
and  the  courts,  the  prestige  of  wealth  and  position, 
and  the  immense  force  of  organized  public  opinion. 
The  operative  of  that  day  was  not  only  desperately 
poor  and  illiterate, — he  had  no  vote.  And  if  he  had 
his  day  in  court,  he  found  that  the  magistrate  re- 
garded him  more  as  a  chattel  than  as  a  human  being. 

'  Engels,  Condition  of  the  Working-Class,  2I4. 

^History  of  Trade  Unionism,  138.  In  a  sketch  like  the  present  one 
it  is  obviously  out  of  the  question  to  deal  with  labor  wars  in  any 
detail.  There  are  many  books  on  the  subject  by  authorities,  e.  g., 
the  Webbs,  Cooke-Taylor,  Innes,  Hobhouse,  Cunningham. 


THE  NEW  AGE  25 

Worse  still,  society  thought  that  it  was  better  for 
all  concerned,  including  the  worker  himself,  that 
he  should  remain  in  servitude.  Compulsory  school 
attendance  was  unknown.  There  were  in  England 
some  infant  schools,  and  later  on  some  mechanics' 
institutes  and  a  few  ineffectual  private  day  schools; 
but  the  only  educational  agency  that  the  upper 
classes  really  desired  to  sustain  was  the  Sunday 
school.  It  did  not  matter  if  the  ragged  juveniles 
of  the  factory  districts  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
provided  they  could  make  a  tolerable  showing  in 
recitation  of  the  incomprehensible  tenets  of  the 
Church  of  England.  A  knowledge  of  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  would  make  for  peace  and  contentment, 
so  a  benevolent  aristocracy  reasoned;  whereas  a 
knowledge  of  the  "  three  r*s"  might  provoke  trouble.^ 
Illiteracy,  therefore,  was  the  rule,  literacy  the  excep- 
tion. "Rather  more  than  570,000  were  not  wholly 
destitute  of  educational  advantages,"  says  Wal- 
pole,  speaking  of  conditions  from  1 8 1 5  to  1 820.  "  But 
there  must,  at  the  very  least,  have  been  2,000,000 
children  requiring  education.  So  that  for  one  child, 
who  had  the  opportunity  of  education,  three  were 
left  entirely  ignorant."  ^  "In  Birmingham,"  says 
Engels,  writing  in  1844,  "more  than  half  the  children 
between  five  and  fifteen  years  attend  no  school 
whatsoever.  ...  In  the  Potteries  district,  .  .  . 
three-fourths  of  the  children  examined  by  the  Com- 
missioner could  neither  read   nor  write,  while   the 


^  For  the  attitude  of  the  aristocracy  see  Wallas,  Life  of  Place,  112; 
Walpole,  History  of  England,  I,  186-9. 
'  History  of  England,  I,  186. 


26  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

whole  district  is  plunged  in  the  deepest  ignorance. 
Children  who  have  attended  Sunday  school  for  years 
could  not  tell  one  letter  from  another."  ^ 

The  ignorant  worker  and  his  ignorant  family, 
therefore,  received  scant  consideration  from  the  law 
and  the  legislature.  Non-interference,  laissez-faire , 
were  the  order  of  the  day.  After  the  repeal  in  1813- 
14  of  the  old  Elizabethan  statute  of  Apprenticeship 
(a  law  enacted  in  1563  giving  justices  power  to  fix 
wages  and  prescribing  certain  regulations  as  to 
apprenticeship),  "the  last  remnant  of  that  legislative 
protection  of  the  Standard  of  Life  which  survived 
from  the  Middle  Ages"  was  swept  away.^  Free, 
individual  bargaining  was  the  sole  method  of  fixing 
wages.  "A  single  master,"  said  Lord  Jeffrey  in 
1825,  "was  at  liberty  at  any  time  to  turn  off  the  whole 
of  his  workmen  at  once — 100  or  1000  in  number — if 
they  would  not  accept  the  wages  he  chose  to  offer. 
But  it  was  made  an  offence  for  the  whole  of  the  work- 
men to  leave  that  master  at  once  if  he  refused  to  give 
the  wages  they  chose  to  require."  ^  The  spirit  of  the 
typical  British  legislator,  as  well  as  of  the  typical 
British  employer,  for  a  full  half  century,  is  well 
shown  in  the  words  of  a  parliamentary  committee  of 
1806,  which  declare  that  "the  right  of  every  man  to 
employ  the  capital  he  inherits,  or  has  acquired,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  discretion,  without  molestation  or 
obstruction,  so  long  as  he  does  not  infringe  on  the 
rights  or  property  of  others,  is  one  of  those  privileges 

^  Condition  of  the  Working-Class,  200,  lOfj. 
*  Webb,  History  of  Trade  Unionism,  55. 
Ubid.,6-!,. 


THE  NEW  AGE  27 

which  the  free  and  happy  constitution  of  this  country 
has  long  accustomed  every  Briton  to  consider  as 
his  birthright."^  The  statement  reminds  one  of  the 
classical  remark  in  1829  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
concerning  his  practice  of  selling  rotten  boroughs  to 
the  highest  bidder:  "Have  I  not  the  right  to  do  what 
I  like  with  my  own?"  It  was  to  be  expected,  there- 
fore, that  the  attitude  of  authority  should  be  almost 
exclusively  in  favor  of  the  propertied  classes,  and  that 
the  "ignorant  and  avaricious"  workmen  should  be 
left  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  magistrates,  who  ap- 
pear to  have  treated  offenders  much  as  Mr.  Bumble, 
the  beadle,  treated  juvenile  paupers.  "Justice  was 
entirely  out  of  the  question,"  says  Francis  Place; 
"the  workingmen  could  seldom  obtain  a  hearing 
before  a  magistrate — never  without  impatience  and 
insult;  and  never  could  they  calculate  on  even  an 
approximation  to  a  rational  conclusion.  .  .  .  Could 
an  accurate  account  be  given  of  proceedings,  of 
hearings  before  magistrates,  trials  of  sessions  and  in 
the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  the  gross  injustice,  the 
foul  invective  and  terrible  punishments  inflicted, 
would  not,  after  a  few  years  have  passed  away,  be 
credited  on  any  but  the  best  of  evidence."-  The 
culmination  of  these  grievances  was  a  complete 
political  disability  of  the  working  classes.  Arnold 
Toynbee  stated  the  literal  truth  when  he  said  that 
"except  as  a  member  of  the  mob,  the  labourer  had 
not  a  shred  of  political  influence."  ^ 

'  Webb,  History  of  Trade  Unionism,  56. 

*  Wallas,  Life  of  Place,  198. 

*  Industrial  Revolution,  186.    The  state  of  the  franchise  prior  to  1832, 
when  the  first  Reform  Bill  was  passed,  is  too  well  known  to  need  dis- 


28  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

lY  This  deplorable  state  of  affairs  in  the  new  indus- 
trialism was  not  due  to  an  irresponsible  sovereign 
and  a  parliament  of  reactionary  landlords  alone.  It 
was  immensely  furthered  by  the  political  and  eco- 
nomic doctrines  of  the  time.  The  eighteenth  century 
had  been  a  period  of  rigid  economic  control,  a  policy 
inherited  from  the  centuries  before  and  modified  to 
suit  contemporary  needs.  By  a  system  of  bounties 
on  exports  and  duties  on  imports,  by  acts  of  parlia- 
ment to  regulate  wages  (in  the  interests  of  landlord 
and  corporation),  by  rigidly  monopolistic  control  of 
the  corporations  over  trades,  by  cheap  labor  and 
high  corn,  governmental  authority  was  well-nigh 
absolute.^  It  was  the  economic  and  political  creed  of 
the  propertied  classes  then  in  power.  Against  these 
old  repressive  measures  the  thought  of  the  new  cen- 
tury set  up  a  determined  revolt.  The  fundamental 
/  postulate  of  the  economic  teaching  of  the  new  age 
was  individual  freedom  and  non-interference  from  the 
state.  One  after  another  the  old  medieval  restric- 
tions were  thrown  overboard;  for  according  to  the 
pilots  of  the  new  school  the  ship  of  state  could  make 
no  headway  while  loaded  down  with  cumbrous  and 
obsolete   machinery.     The   founders  of  this   school 

cussion,  even  if  there  were  any  good  reason  for  entering  into  it  here. 
Toynbee's  statement  covers  the  whole  ground.  One  of  the  best  ex- 
tended accounts  of  the  old  corrupt  rotten  borough  system  and  the  grow- 
ing agitation  against  it  is  Walpole's,  in  his  History  of  England  from  1815. 
See  especially  Ch.  II  of  Vol.  I,  and  pp.  314-342  of  Vol.  II;  also  pp.  208- 
244  of  Vol.  III.  For  the  attitude  of  the  radicals,  Chapters  9,  10,  and 
II  of  Wallas's  Life  of  Place  are  of  great  value. 

^  "They  endeavoured  to  regulate  the  clothes  which  the  living  should 
wear,  and  the  shrouds  in  which  the  dead  should  be  buried."  (Walpole, 
History,  I,  215.) 


THE  NEW  AGE  29 

were  Adam  Smith  and  Jeremy  Bentham,  one  the 
father  of  political  economy,  the  other  the  father  of 
philosophical  radicalism.^  According  to  Bentham's 
"gospel  of  enlightened  selfishness,"  the  end  of  action 
was  happiness,  and  happiness  resulted  from  a  selfish 
pursuit  of  pleasure, — pleasure,  too,  that  sprang  from 
"  material  consequences.'^  When  a  man  by  dexterous 
additions  and  subtractions  of  the  fourteen  pleasures 
and  the  twelve  pains  to  which  he  was  liable  could 
deduct  for  himself  a  net  surplus  of  pleasure  he  might 
be  accounted  happy, — such  was  the  calculation  of 
Bentham's  arithmetical  hedonism.  1  And  the  end  of 
society  was  reached,  upon  this  theory,  when  the 
greatest  number  of  individuals  in  it  could  secure  the 
largest  net  result  of  happiness :-)-a  consummation 
which  would  come,  be  it  remembered,  only  when  each 
person  was  allowed'unrestricted  freedom  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  own  interests.  ■  'The  function  of  govern- 
ment, on  this  doctrine,  was  negative  and  restraining 
only.  It  would  see  that  the  selfish  desires  of  men  did 
not  clash  (if  collisions  were  possible!),  and  it  would 
keep  the  way  clear  for  the  unfettered  competition  of 
men  in  the  race  for  the  goods  of  life/  The  world,  in 
the  thought  of  Bentham  and  his  early  disciples,  was 
thus  a  collocation  of  human  units, — the  idea  is  J.  S. 

•  Bentham  said  of  himself:  "I  am  the  spiritual  father  of  James  Mill, 
James  Mill  is  the  spiritual  father  of  Ricardo,  therefore,  I  am  the  spiritual 
grandfather  of  Ricardo."  (Quoted  by  Toynbee,  Industrial  Revolution, 
3.)  James  Mill,  J.  S.  Mill,  Grote,  the  Austins,  all  the  intellectual  radi- 
cals of  the  time  go  back  to  Bentham;  so,  too,  do  the  parliamentary 
leaders.  Sir  Francis  Burdett,  Sir  J.  Cam  Hobhouse,  and  Joseph  Hume; 
and  also  the  radical  agitator,  Francis  Place.  It  was  by  Bentham's  money 
and  initiative  that  the  tVeslminster  Review,  the  radical  organ,  was 
founded  in  1824. 


30  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Mill's  also, — each  following  his  own  interest,  and 
each  kept  from  "jostling  one  another"  by  "law, 
religion,  and  public  opinion."  So  conceived,  society 
becomes,  in  Sir  Leslie  Stephen's  apt  phrase,  a  crea- 
tion of  "universal  cohesion  out  of  universal  repul- 
sion." 

The  political  economy  of  Adam  Smith  rests  upon 
assumptions  practically  identical  with  those  of 
Bentham  and  the  philosophical  radicals.  In  fact  the 
economists  built  upon  foundations  laid  by  the  radi- 
cals, just  as  the  radicals  adopted  the  new  doctrines  of 
the  "classical  school."  ^  The  economic  order, — such 
was  the  teaching  of  Smith, — springs  spontaneously 
from  self-interest,  that  is  to  say,  from  the  innate 
desire  of  every  man  to  better  himself.  "The  natural 
effort  of  every  individual  to  better  his  own  condition, 
when  suffered  to  exert  itself  with  freedom  and  secu- 
rity, is  so  powerful  a  principle,  that  it  is  alone,  and 
without  any  assistance,  not  only  capable  of  carrying 
on  the  society  to  wealth  and  prosperity,  but  of  sur- 
mounting a  hundred  impertinent  obstructions  with 
which  the  folly  of  human  laws  too  often  incumbers 
its  operations;  though  the  effect  of  these  obstructions 
is  always  more  or  less  either  to  encroach  upon  its 
freedom,  or  to  diminish  its  security.  ...  It  is  not 
from  the  benevolence  of  the  butcher,  the  brewer,  or 
the  baker,  that  we  expect  our  dinner,  but  from  their 
regard  to  their  own  interest."  -  Such  are  the  classic 
presuppositiojis  of  the  father  of- political  economy. 

'  I  refer  of  course  chiefly  to  Smith,  Malthus,  and  Ricardo.  Smith's 
Wealth  of  Nations  came  out  in  1776;  Malthus'  Essays  on  population, 
in  1798;  Ricardo's  Principles  of  Political  Economy  and  Taxation,  in  1817. 

2  Wealth  of  Nations,  II,  43;  I,  16. 


THE  NEW  AGE  31 

Man  is  best  off  when  least  disturbed  in  the  pursuit  of 
his  own  interests;  and  his  own  real  interests  do  not 
collide  with  those  of  his  neighbors,  since  what  is  best 
for  him  is  best  for  them.  Like  Bentham's,  it  is 
another  plea  for  freedom,  and  in  Smith's  doctrine 
(in  a  day  of  corrupt  and  inefficient  government)  a 
plea  even  more  for  the  poor  man  than  for  the  capital- 
ist and  the  landlord.^ 

The  economists  who  followed  Smith — Malthus 
and  Ricardo — adopted  his  presuppositions  as  axio- 
matic. But  they  went  further  and  developed  two 
doctrines  which  deserve  to  be  singled  out,  because 
they  so  clearly  suggest  the  influence  of  the  new 
economic  teaching  upon  the  welfare  of  the  working 
class, — [the  theory  of  population  and  the  wage-fund 
theory^  Doth  of  which  were  law  and  gospel  among  the 
intellectual  radicals  for  a  half  century  and  more.  It 
was  Malthus  who  formulated  the  famous  law  of 
increasing  population  and  of  diminishing  returns. 
The  population,  he  said,  increases  in  a  geometrical 
progression,  while  the  means  of  subsistence  increase 
only  in  an  arithmetical  progression;  and  therefore 
the  food-supply  of  the  world  always  tends  to  be  in- 

'  "The  patrimony  of  the  poor  man  Hes  in  the  strength  and  dexterity 
of  his  hands;  and  to  hinder  him  from  employing  the  strength  and  dex- 
terity in  what  manner  he  thinks  proper  without  injury  to  his  neighbor, 
is  a  plain  violation  of  this  most  sacred  property."  On  this  theory  govern- 
ment was  left  with  little  to  do  but  to  keep  its  hands  off.  "The  sovereign 
is  completely  discharged  from  a  duty," — and  by  sovereign  Smith  of 
course  means  the  state —  "in  the  attempting  to  perform  which  he  must 
always  be  exposed  to  innumerable  delusions,  and  for  the  proper  perform- 
ance of  which  no  human  wisdom  or  knowledge  could  ever  be  sufficient; 
the  duty  of  superintending  the  industry  of  private  people,  and  of  direct- 
ing it  towards  the  employments  most  suitable  to  the  interest  of  the 
society."    {fVealth  of  Nations,  I,  123;  II,  184.) 


32  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

sufficient  to  feed  the  people,  unless  checks  are  found 
to  reduce  their  numbers.^  Nature's  check  is  death. 
And  the  first  to  feel  the  rigors  of  its  law  are  the  poor. 
But  the  poor  are  in  the  clutches  of  another  law  also, — 
(the  law  of  wages,/— which  collaborates  with  its  fellow 
as  smoothly  as  Spenlow  collaborated  with  Jorkins  in 
David  Copperfield.  The  theory  of  wages  was  set 
forth  by  Mai  thus,  but  it  was  elaborated  and  popular- 
ized by  Ricardo.  There  is  at  any  time,  they  said,  a 
fixed  sum  of  money  that  can  go  for  wages;  it  is  just 
sufficient  to  keep  the  wage-earners  plodding  along  on 
the  lowest  level  of  existence:  for  if  it  is  increased  so 
that  wages  go  up,  the  workers  will  multiply  beyond 
the  demand  for  labor  and  the  means  of  subsistence, 
and  the  wage- fund  will  shrink  to  its  old  dimensions.^ 
These  laws, — so  it  was  thought  and  taught, — were 
the  creation  of  destiny,  not  to  be  altered  by  decree  of 
parliament. 2  The  fate  of  the  worker  was  in  his  own 
hands.  If  he  would  better  his  condition,  let  him 
abjure  the  old  Hebraic  command  to  increase  and 
multiply,  and  follow  the  new  gospel  of  Mai  thus 
and  Ricardo.^ 

1  The  law  refers  of  course  to  real  wages,  not  to  money  wages.  If  the 
wages  go  up,  but  the  prices  of  food  go  up,  too,  then  the  actual  conditions 
remain  the  same.  "The  natural  price  of  labor,"  said  Ricardo,  "is  that 
price  which  is  necessary  to  enable  the  laborers  one  with  another  to  sub- 
sist and  to  perpetuate  their  race  without  either  increase  or  diminution." 
(Quoted  by  Gide  and  Rist,  History  of  Economic  Doctrine,  157.) 

^The  suggestions  of  Malthus  and  others  that  the  poor  might  exercise 
moral  restraint  to  keep  down  their  numbers  were  received  with  anathe- 
mas by  the  people  of  the  regency  and  of  the  reign  of  George  IV.  Their 
piety  seems  to  have  been  in  inverse  ratio  to  their  religion. 

'"The  people  must  comprehend  that  they  are  themselves  the  cause 
of  their  own  poverty,"  said  Malthus.  (Gide  and  Rist,  ibid.,  1 19.)  "Every 
suggestion  which  does  not  tend  to  the  reduction  in  number  of  the  working 
people  is  useless,"  said  Francis  Place.    (Wallas,  Life  of  Place,  174.) 


THE  NEW  AGE  33 

The  popularity  of  this  latest  evangel  for  the  poor 
was  a  measure  of  its  acceptance.  Its  golden  rules 
were  regarded  as  truisms  which  a  child  might  under- 
stand. Harriet  Martineau  diluted  them  down  to 
what  she  thought  was  the  capacity  of  juvenile 
intelligence  in  her  nine  volumes  of  Illustratioy^s 
(1832-34).  Maria  Edgeworth  in  her  letters  declared 
that  ladies  of  fashion  wanted  governesses  who 
were  "competent"  in  political  economy.  "Political 
Economy,"  said  Bagehot,  "was  a  favorite  subject 
in  England  from  about  18 10  to  about  1840,  and 
this  to  an  extent  which  the  present  generation  can 
scarcely  comprehend."  ^  In  1830  John  Stuart  Mill 
spoke  of  Ricardo's  book  as  "immortal."  Cobbett 
thought  that  Malthus  held  in  political  economy 
a  position  like  that  of  Newton  in  astronomy;  he 
considered  the  Malthusian  principle  one  "which 
never  can  be  shaken."  ^  Francis  Place,  an  equally 
devout  Malthusian,  regarded  the  economists  of 
his  day  as  "the  great  enlighteners  of  the  people."  ^ 
Their  instant  and  enormous  vogue  is  not  indeed 
difficult  to  make  out  from  the  vantage  ground  of 
history.  The  doctrines  they  stood  for  suited  the 
temper  of  the  times,  were  abundantly  supported 
by  common  sense,  and  appeared  to  rest  upon  un- 
changing foundations.  Emanating  chiefly  from 
middle-class  thinking,  they  furthered  and  fostered 
middle-class  enterprises.  "The  economy  of  Ri- 
cardo  and  Mill,"  as  Mr.  Hobson  says,  "was  never 

'  Bagehot,  Economic  Studies,  154. 

*  Melville,  Liff  and  Letters  of  Cobbett,  I,  292-3. 

*  Wallas,  Life  of  Place,  161;  see  also  166. 


34  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

political.  ...  It  was  simply  the  economy  of  the 
shrewd  Lancashire  mill  manager  'writ  large'  and 
called  political."  ^  Again  and  again  in  their  combats 
with  parliamentary  committees,  the  manufacturers 
used  weapons  that  the  radicals  and  economists  had 
forged.  "Have  I  not  a  right  to  do  what  I  will  with 
my  own?" — this  was  their  shibboleth  when  they 
came  down  to  Westminster  to  defend  themselves 
against  obnoxious  investigators.  The  typical  factory- 
owner  of  the  early  Victorian  era  was  not  concerned 
with  the  condition  of  his  workers,  nor  with  any 
purely  "human"  equations.  What  he  wanted  was 
what  the  "hard-headed"  business  man  has  always 
wanted, — the  unchartered  freedom  to  buy  his  raw 
material  in  the  cheapest  market,  sell  it  in  the  dearest, 
pay  only  the  wages  he  must  pay  to  get  the  work 
done,  pocket  his  profits  to  do  with  as  he  liked,  and 
let  his  laborers,  when  paid,  look  out  for  themselves 
as  best  they  could.  Was  it  possible  for  common 
sense  to  deny  the  validity  of  such  a  position?  And 
if  practice  needed  the  support  of  precept,  one  had 
only  to  turn  again  to  the  high  priests  of  the  sacred 
science.  "Political  economy,"  said  Nassau  Senior, 
holder  at  Oxford  of  the  first  chair  of  political  economy 
in  England  and  author  of  one  of  the  first  text-books 
on  the  subject,  "political  economy  is  not  greedy 
of  facts;  it  is  independent  of  facts." 

Obviously,  then,  the  social  philosophy  of  the  day 
did  not  much  concern  itself  with  the  wage-earnery 
His  status  in  life  was  fixed.     His  condition  within 
that  status  was  subject  to  his  personal  control,  a 

'  Hobson,  John  Ruskin:  Social  Reformer,  93. 


THE  NEW  AGE  35 

matter  of  private,  not  of  public,  interest.  He  might 
bargain  individually  with  his  employer,  and  might 
take  his  chances  with  his  fellows  in  the  general 
scramble,  but  if  he  attempted  to  bargain  collectively 
he  was  a  menace  to  society.  It  is  plain  to-day  that 
all  this  was  anything  but  "free  and  unlimited  com- 
petition"; for  the  workers  as  individuals  were  help- 
less against  the  organized  power  and  wealth  of  the 
captains  of  industry.  The  situation  was  accurately 
stated  by  Arnold  Toynbee,  when  he  said  that  while 
the  political  economy  of  that  day  sought  to  establish 
*^jree  competition  of  equal  industrial  unitSj'  what  it 
really  helped  to  establish  was  "free  competition  of 
unequal  industrial  units."  ^  Without  the  support, 
therefore,  of  justice-loving  men  from  the  upper- 
classes,  who  builded  even  better  than  they  knew, 
the  proletariat  might  not  have  risen  from  servitude 
except  through  revolution. 

But  during  the  first  thirty  years  or  so  of  the  cen- 
tury, up  to  the  period  when  Carlyle  entered  the 
field  as  a  critic  of  industrial  society,  some  progress 
towards  an  improved  Standard  of  Life  had  been 
made.  The  Factory  Acts  of  1802,  18 19,  and  1833 
were  passed,  and  in  1824-5  the  Combination  Laws 
were  repealed.-     The  repeal  of  these  laws  was  of 

'  Toynbee,  Industrial  Revolution,  17. 

*The  Factory  Act  of  1802,  introduced  by  Sir  Robert  Peel,  father 
of  the  famous  Sir  Robert,  applied  only  to  apprentices  in  cotton  mills. 
Among  its  provisions  were:  whitewashing  of  rooms  in  factories;  instruc- 
tion of  apprentices  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  and  limitation  of 
working  hours  to  12.  The  act  did  not  apply  to  "free"  labor,  and  h 
did  not  in  any  way  limit  the  age  of  employment.  The  Act  of  1819  for- 
bade employment  of  children  up  to  nine  years  of  age,  restricted  the  hours 
of  work  for  those  under  16  years  to  12  hours  per  day  less  lyi  hours  for 


36  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

immense  importance  to  the  working  world.  "The 
right  of  collective  bargaining,  involving  the  power 
to  withhold  labor  from  the  market  by  concerted 
action,  was  for  the  first  time  expressly  established."  ^ 
Foremost  among  the  men  who  led  in  the  various 
movements  for  betterment  were  Place,  Cobbett, 
Robert  Owen,  and,  later.  Lord  Ashley,  seventh 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury.  Place  and  Cobbett,  them- 
selves sprung  from  the  working  classes,  were  the 
most  practical  of  the  reformers.  To  them  real  reform 
began  with  political  reform.  They  saw  the  futility 
of  any  progress  in  the  industrial  and  agricultural 
communities  while  parliament,  under  the  sway  of 
the  old  rotten  borough  system,  was  in  the  control 
of  Tory  landlords  who  accomplished  their  ends 
through  the  most  open,  wholesale,  and  shameless 
methods  of  bribery  known  in  the  political  history 
of  England.  Cobbett,  through  his  twopenny 
Political  Register  (i 802-1 836),  and  Place,  largely 
through  an  extraordinary  direct  personal  influence, 

meals,  and  limited  the  total  hours  of  work  per  week  to  72.  Like  the 
previous  act  it  applied  only  to  cotton  mills.  It  contained  no  provision 
for  education,  and  none  for  inspection,  leaving  violations  to  be  reported 
by  common  informers.  The  Act  of  1833  "prohibited  night-work  to 
all  young  persons  under  eighteen;  it  allowed  no  child  under  nine  to  work 
except  in  silk  mills,  and  it  prescribed  a  limitation  of  hours  of  labor  to 
nine  in  one  day,  or  forty-eight  in  a  week,  for  every  child  under  eleven, 
on  the  first  passing  of  the  Act;  a  year  later  this  restriction  was  to  apply 
to  all  children  under  twelve,  and,  again,  in  a  year's  time  to  all  children 
under  thirteen."  (Slater,  Making  of  Modern  England,  124.)  Young  people 
between  thirteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age  were  restricted  to  a  twelve- 
hour  day.  This  act  applied  to  all  textile  industries,  and  was  to  be  made 
effective  by  the  appointment  of  four  government  inspectors. 

The  Combination  Laws,  passed  in  1799  and  1800,  made  all  combina- 
tions among  operatives  illegal  on  the  ground  of  restraint  of  trade.  They 
were  a  powerful  weapon  for  the  manufacturers  up  to  1825. 

^  Webb,  History  oj  Trade  Unionism,  97. 


THE  NEW  AGE  37 

incessantly  advocated  an  extensive  and  thorough- 
going reform  of  parliament,  including  universal 
manhood  suffrage  and  voting  by  ballot.'  Though 
the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  did  not  secure  the  relief  which 
these  stout  agitators  demanded,  it  effectually  broke 
up  the  old  system  and  was  a  long  stride  in  the  right 
direction.  The  work  of  Owen,  first  great  socialist, 
though  not  so  directly  practical  as  that  of  Cobbett 
and  Place,  was  perhaps  even  more  influential,  at 
least  if  its  total  effect  is  taken  into  account.  A 
dreamer,  dreaming  of  a  golden  age,  "to  come  sud- 
denly like  a  thief  in  the  night,"  as  he  said,  Owen  pic- 
tured a  new  terrestrial  paradise,  where  through  a 
rational  system  of  universal  education,  favorable 
environment  and  "villages  of  co-operation  and 
equality,"  competition  and  capitalism  would  be  no 
more  and  mortals  would  live  happily  upon  a  plane 
of  mutual  ownership  and  social  equality.  His 
dreams  faded  into  nothingness  or  vanished  into 
Utopia,  where  like  other  visions  of  other  visionaries 
they  may  be  awaiting  the  slow  upward  march  of 
humanity.  But  he  left  behind  him  achievements 
of  a  more  substantial  kind.  He  reformed  conditions 
in  his  own  mills  at  New  Lanark,  so  that  these  mills 
became  a  model,  in  a  distressing  period,  of  what 

'"In  January,  1817,  Cobbett's  Register  was  selling  50,000  a  week  of 
its  twopenny  edition."  (Wallas,  Life,  124.)  Samuel  Bamford,  the  radical, 
wrote  of  Cobbett's  paper:  "They  were  read  on  nearly  every  cottage 
hearth  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of  South  Lancashire,  in  those  of 
Leicester,  Derby,  and  Nottingham;  also  in  many  of  the  Scotch  manu- 
facturing towns.  Their  influence  was  speedily  visible.  He  directed  his 
readers  to  the  true  cause  of  their  sufferings — misgovernment;  and  to  its 
proper  correction — parliamentary  reform."  (Melville,  Life  of  Cobbett, 
II,  75) 


38  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

factories  should  be.  He  labored  unremittingly  to 
secure  a  decent  Standard  of  Life  in  factories  every- 
where (by  minimum  time  and  minimum  wage), 
and  he  was  directly  influential  in  securing  early 
factory  legislation.  With  the  fervor  of  an  apostolic 
Christian,  he  went  straight  to  the  operatives  all 
over  Great  Britain,  denouncing  competition  among 
the  capitalists  and  preaching  union  and  co-operation 
among  the  workers.  For  twenty  years  (i 8 15-1835) 
Owen  was  probably  the  greatest  single  force  in 
bringing  the  laboring  world  to  a  realization  of  its 
collective  strength;  and  the  far-spread  seed  of  his 
planting  bore  fruit  many  fold  in  the  years  to  come. 
Progress,  then,  there  was.  Competition  and 
laissez-faire  had  been  openly  attacked,  and  at  some 
points  they  were  decisively  routed.  But  the  field 
stretched  interminably  ahead  toward  the  ultimate 
objective,  and  there  were  unnumbered  obstacles 
looming  up  with  every  new  advance.  Even  the  most 
radical  reformers  were  largely  guided  by  middle-class 
ideals  and  could  see  the  battle  only  from  their  own 
point  of  view.  Owen,  with  the  temper  of  an  intoler- 
ant idealist  who  distrusts  compromises  and  half- 
measures,  held  aloof  from  all  political  activity,  and 
took  no  part  in  the  reform  movement  of  i8j2,  nor  in 
the  long  struggle  for  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  nor 
in  the  momentous  Chartist  agitations,  although  his 
teaching  told  strongly  upon  many  of  the  leading 
Chartists,  and  upon  the  beginnings  of  trade-unionism. 
His  appeal  for  help  was  mainly  addressed  to  benevo- 
lent members  of  the  upper-classes,  for  his  idea  of 
reform  savored  of  the  aristocratic  method  of  reaching 


THE  NEW  AGE  39 

down  to  the  masses  below,  to  alleviate,  not  to  recon- 
struct. The  radicals,  philosophical  and  political 
alike,  true  to  their  creed,  were  willing  to  remove  old 
restrictions,  but  resisted  the  imposition  of  new. 
James  Mill  regarded  the  middle-class  as  a  model  for 
the  masses;  "the  great  majority  of  the  people,"  said 
he,  "never  cease  to  be  guided  by  that  rank."  Ri- 
cardo  believed  in  the  repeal  of  the  Combination  Laws, 
but  did  not  favor  the  restrictions  imposed  by  the 
Factory  Acts.  His  disciple,  Joseph  Hume,  a  leader 
among  the  parliamentary  radicals,  and  a  co-worker 
with  Place,  led  in  the  fight  for  the  repeal  of  the  Com- 
bination Laws  in  1824,  while  in  1833  he  contended 
that  the  passing  of  the  Factory  Acts  was  "pernicious 
and  a  libel"  upon  the  humanity  of  the  masters. 
Even  Place  himself,  the  most  consistently  practical 
of  all  the  agitators,  and  a  fearless  and  open  fighter 
against  injustice  and  tyranny,  thought  that  after  the 
repeal  of  the  Laws,  combinations  among  workmen 
would  "fall  to  pieces,"  because  workmen  had  com- 
bined only  to  resist  the  oppression  of  the  old  regula- 
tions, not  to  promote  the  creation  of  new.  Middle- 
class  opinion  continued  to  predominate  in  the  halls  of 
legislature,  in  the  councils  of  party,  and  in  the  circles 
of  the  intellectual  element  for  a  good  many  years  to 
come.  The  worker  of  1832,  like  the  worker  of  1800, 
was  without  political  rights;  the  education  of  his 
children  except  for  a  few  well-intentioned,  but  pietis- 
tic  and  ineffectual  efforts  of  experimenters  and  par- 
sons, was  wholly  unprovided  for;  and  government 
was  only  making  faint  and  hesitating  headway  in  the 
betterment  of  conditions  in  which  he  was  fated  to 


40  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

live.  Under  the  stress  of  circumstances,  however, 
there  was  in  him  a  growing  sense  of  injustice  and  of 
the  power  of  union  with  his  fellows.  Meantime,  as 
the  years  went  on  and  as  industry,  commerce,  and 
wealth  expanded  to  gigantic  proportions,  a  knowledge 
of  the  worker's  condition  spread  abroad  in  society 
and  new  champions  came  forward  to  espouse  his 
cause.  Among  these  were  two  men  of  genius,  with 
whom  the  present  study  is  concerned,  Thomas 
Carlyle  and  John  Ruskin,  prophets  of  revolt  and 
heralds  of  a  new  day  of  justice. 


CHAPTER  II 

SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET 

"One  can  predict,  without  gift  of  prophecy,  that  the 
era  of  routine  is  nearly  ended.  Cost  what  it  may,  by  one 
means  or  another,  the  toihng  multitudes  of  this  perplexed, 
over-crowded  Europe  must  and  will  find  governors. 
'Laissez-faire,  Leave  them  to  do'?  The  thing  they  will 
do,  if  so  left,  is  too  frightful  to  think  of!  It  has  been  done 
once,  in  sight  of  the  whole  earth,  in  these  generations:  can 
it  need  to  be  done  a  second  time.?" — Carlyle. 

The  life  of  Carlyle  was  coincident  with  the  momen- 
tous events  of  the  new  era.  Born  in  1795  and  living 
until  1 88 1,  he  was  a  spectator  of  the  social  transfor- 
mations that  went  on  in  England  and  in  Europe  dur- 
ing the  better  part  of  the  century,  and  that  brought 
men  face  to  face  with  new  conditions  and  forced  upon 
them  new  and  newer  conclusions.  Graduated  from 
the  University  of  Edinburgh  in  18 14,  the  year  before 
Napoleon  was  overthrown  at  Waterloo,  he  saw  the 
unfolding  of  a  great  social  and  political  drama, 
action  and  reaction,  revolution  and  counter-revolu- 
tion, such  as  made  Europe  a  battle-ground  between 
the  old  order  and  the  new  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury. The  distress  and  revolts  following  upon  the 
Napoleonic  era,  the  "Carbonari  rebellions  and  other 
political  tumults"  in  Italy  and  Spain,  the  revolutions 
of  1830  and  1848  in  Belgium  and  France, — "lava- 
torrents  of  fever  frenzy,  and  immense  explosions  of 
democracy,"  Carlyle  called  them, — the  unification  of 

41 


42  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Italy  and  of  Germany,  and  the  giant  onward  stride 
of  industrialism  and  democracy  everywhere; — these 
were  events,  or  rather  angry  portents,  that  followed 
one  upon  another  in  the  countries  across  the  channel. 
At  home  affairs  were  no  less  charged  with  ominous 
meaning,  and  Carlyle  watched  them  at  close  range. 
He  wrote  his  earliest  essays  at  Edinburgh  and  at 
Craigenputtock  amid  "  the  din  and  frenzy  of  Catholic 
Emancipations  and  Rotten  Boroughs."  He  was  in 
London  in  the  winter  of  1831-32,  during  the  pro- 
longed fight  on  the  Reform  Bill,  having  temporarily 
left  the  solitude  of  Craigenputtock  in  the  vain  hope 
of  finding  a  publisher  for  Sartor  Resartus.  And  after 
1834  as  a  permanent  resident  in  London  he  witnessed 
with  growing  amazement  and  apprehension  every- 
thing that  went  on  about  him  in  the  political  and 
industrial  world,  from  the  Chartist  movements,  the 
Corn  Law  agitations,  and  the  rise  of  trade-unions,  to 
the  passing  of  the  Reform  Bill  of  1867,  which  the  then 
venerable  prophet  of  Chelsea  regarded  as  England's 
final  plunge  over  the  precipice  and  into  the  whirlpool 
of  democracy.  No  spectator  could  have  been  more 
alive  to  the  momentousness  of  these  changes  than 
,  Carlyle.  To  him  the  entire  period  was  one  of  transi- 
/  tion  and  unrest;  an  age  in  a  state  of  flux,  ever  on  the 
}  verge  of  revolution,  and  nowhere  resting  upon  sure 
/  and  settled  foundations.  "There  is  a  deep-lying 
struggle  in  the  whole  fabric  of  society;  a  boundless 
grinding  collision  of  the  New  with  the  Old,"  he  said 
in  1829.^  Almost  forty  years  later  he  read  the  signs 
of  the  times  to  the  same  effect:  "There  probably 

'  Signs  of  the  Times ,  252. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       43 

never  was  since  the  Heptarchy  ended,  or  almost  since  ) 
it  began,  so  hugely  critical  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
England  as  this  we  have  now  entered  upon."  ^    And   j 
when  he  asked  himself  and  his  readers  what  was  the 
nature  of  this  crisis,  what  it  was  that  "bursts  asunder 
the  bonds  of  ancient  Political  Systems,  and  perplexes 
all  Europe  with  the  fear  of  Change,"  his  answer  was 
ready:  it  was,  he  said,  "the  increase  of  social  re- 7 
sources,  which  the  old  social  methods  will  no  longer 
sufficiently  administer."  -  .,^ 

Carlyle's  interest  in  revolutionary  movements  was  ] 
passionate  and  profound   from   the  first.     He  was  ^ 
hardly  out  of  college  when  "the  condition  of  England 
question"  became,  and  to  the  end  of  his  days  re- 
mained, the  central   theme  of  his  thought,  his  in- 
quiries, and  his  talk.     It  was  a  constant  subject  of 
discussion    between    him    and    his    friend    Edward 
Irving,  in  the  early  days  when  both  were  teaching  at 
Kirkcaldy.      His    first    political    and    social    essay, \ 
Signs  oj the  Times^  1829,  found  its  way  to  Paris,  where  1 
it  aroused  the  interest  of  the  Society  of  St.  Simo- 
nians.    These  ardent  dreamers  of  a  new  order  at  once 
began  to  solicit  the  attention  of  the  mystic  radical  of 
Craigenputtock,  and  were  hopeful  that  they  might 
make  a  disciple  of  him.    They  dispatched  a  parcel  of  ) 
books  and  pamphlets   to   Carlyle,   and   for  a   time 
undoubtedly    much    engaged    his    interest    in    their 
doctrines,  even  though  Goethe  warned  him  to  keep 
clear  of  their   influence.     He  directed   his   brother 
John,  then  in  London,  to  send  him  their  books;  and  he 
translated  St.  Simon's  chief  work,  Nouveau  Christian- 

'  Shooting  Niagara,  200.  *  Essays,  IV,  34. 


44  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

isme,  with  a  short  introduction,  and  sent  it  to  his 
brother  to  be  sold  to  a  pubHsher.^  His  mind  was 
very  evidently  running  on  the  social  teachings  of 
these  enthusiasts  when  he  set  foot  in  London  in  1831, 
for  he  records  that  at  an  eating-house  on  his  arrival 
in  August,  he  began  discussing  social  problems  among 
some  Frenchmen,  "one  of  whom  ceases  eating  to 
hear  the  talk  of  the  St.  Simonians."  ^  In  that  epoch 
the  disciples  of  St.  Simon  were  "stirring  and  con- 
spicuous objects,"  and  Carlyle  came  into  personal 
contact  with  a  number  of  them,  notably  Gustave 
d'Eichthal  and  Detrosier,  the  latter  of  whom  was 
then  lecturing  to  the  working  classes  of  Manchester. 
Although  they  may  have  wandered  into  strange 
paths,  to  the  transcendentalist  of  Craigenputtock 
they  seemed  to  have  laid  hold  of  momentous  but 
neglected  truths  concerning  the  spiritual  and  social 
nature  of  man,  and  to  have  been  a  notable  sign  of  the 
times.  And  when  he  returned  to  the  solitude  of  his 
home,  he  offered  to  write  an  essay  on  the  society,  but 
magazine  editors  were  again  deaf  to  his  proposals. 
Readers  of  Sartor  Resartus  will  recall  that  the  society 
transmitted  its  propositions  to  Teufelsdrockh  (who 
comments:  "here  also  are  men  who  have  discovered, 
not  without  amazement,  that  Man  is  still  Man"), 
and  that  the  strange  disappearance  of  the  clothes- 
philosopher  was  perhaps  to  be  accounted  for  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  gone  to  join  the  St.  Simonians! 
But  these  heralds  of  a  new  Christianity  from  Paris 

^  Apparently  without  success.    There  is  no  evidence  that  it  was  pub- 
lished at  that  time,  or  that  it  has  appeared  since. 
*  Two  Note  Books,  193. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       45 

were  by  no  means  the  only  sources  from  which  Car- 
lyle,  during  his  six  months  in  London  in  1 831-1832, 
added  to  his  already  abundant  store  of  knowledge 
and  enthusiasm  concerning  the  problems  of  the  day. 
A  radical,  even  though  a  spiritual  and  speculative 
one,  he  was  not  without  some  hopes  of  becoming 
himself  the  center  of  a  mystical  school,  to  which 
might  be  drawn  the  younger  spirits  of  the  radical 
group  then  dominant  in  London  political  circles.  He 
had  many  walks  and  talks  with  John  Stuart  Mill, 
"a  fine  clear  enthusiast,  who  will  one  day  come  to 
something."  ^  He  saw  again  on  frequent  occasions 
his  old  pupil,  the  brilliant  Charles  Buller,  soon  to  be  a 
rising  member  of  parliament  and  the  hope  of  the 
parliamentary  radicals.  These  two  men,  Mill  and 
Buller,  together  with  Irving  (now  a  popular  London 
preacher),  brought  Carlyle  into  somewhat  close 
touch  with  utilitarian  circles; — with  John  Austin,  the 
legalist,  with  Bowring,  the  friend  and  biographer  of 
Bentham,  and  editor  of  the  Westminster  Review;  with 
Molesworth,  founder  of  the  London  Review^  and  many 
others.  We  may  be  sure  that  the  outpouring  of  utili- 
tarianism from  these  sources  was  more  than  met  by 
copious  floods  of  "Teufelsdrockhist"  mysticism  from 

'  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  II  (Edition  of  1882-4,  by  Scribner's),  162.  In  a 
letter  to  John  Sterling  (October,  183 1)  Mill  describes  Carlyle,  whom  he 
has  just  met.  Among  other  things  he  says:  "He  has  by  far  the  widest 
liberality  and  tolerance  that  I  have  met  with  in  any  one;  and  he  differs 
from  most  men,  who  see  as  much  as  he  does  into  the  defects  of  the  age, 
by  a  circumstance  greatly  to  his  advantage  in  my  estimation,  that  he 
looks  for  a  safe  landing  before  and  not  behind;  he  sees  that  if  we  could  only 
replace  things  as  they  once  were,  we  should  only  retard  the  final  issue,  as 
we  should  in  all  probability  go  on  just  as  we  then  did,  and  arrive  at  the 
very  place  where  we  now  stand."  {Letters  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  I,  16.) 


46  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  lips  of  Carlyle,  who  was  each  day  stronger  in  his 
conviction  that  what  the  times  needed  most  was  not 
Benthamism,  but  "the  doctrine  of  the  Phoenix,  of 
Natural  Supernaturalism,  and  the  whole  Clothes 
Philosophy!"  ^  Through  the  offices  of  Francis 
Jeffrey,  now  no  longer  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review 
but  member  of  parliament,  he  visited  the  old  unre- 
formed  House  of  Commons,  where  he  heard  Althrop, 
Wetherell,  and  Joseph  Hume,  all  of  them  protagonists 
^  in  the  struggle  for  better  political  conditions.  It 
would  be  easy  to  extend  the  list  of  these  contacts 
which  Carlyle  was  fortunate  enough  to  secure  in  the 
winter  of  1831-32.  A  little  later  after  he  established 
his  residence  in  London  (1834)  his  house  was  for  years 
a  kind  of  shrine  to  which  many  of  the  most  passionate 
spirits  of  the  age  made  pilgrimage  for  guidance  and 
inspiration; — among  the  most  famous  being  Godfroi 
Cavaignac,  in  exile  from  France  for  conspiracy 
against  Louis  Philippe;  Louis  Blanc,  the  celebrated 
French  socialist  leader  of  1848  days;  and  the  beloved 
Mazzini,  organizer  and  soul  of  new  Italy,  The  oracle 
in  those  times  was  rather  more  apt  to  express  himself 
in   hoarse   thunder, 

'*  winged  with  red  lightning  and  impetuous  rage,'* 

than  in  articulate  speech.  But  the  worshipers  came 
none  the  less,  for  they  saw  here  a  man  who  had  passed 
through  a  profound  spiritual  experience  and  whose 
discussion  of  the  times  was  lighted  up  with  a  passion- 
ate sense  of  social  justice  and  with  an  equally  passion- 
•^     ate  sympathy  for  the  poor  and  oppressed.    Emerson 

1  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  II,  145. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       47 

had  found  this  out  when  he  made  his  pilgrimage  to 
Craigenputtock,  in  1833.  "He  still  returned  to 
English  pauperism,"  said  Emerson,  speaking  of  their 
earnest  talks  together,  "the  crowded  country,  the 
selfish  abdication  by  public  men  of  all  that  public 
persons  should  perform.  Government  should  direct 
poor  men  what  to  do."  ^  ^ 

Carlyle's    interest    in    social   and   industrial   con-  ? 
ditions  was  altogether  too  serious  to  permit  him  to  \ 
remain    satisfied    with    discussion    among    thinkers/ 
and   theorists   and  agitators   alone.     He  wished   to' 
see  the  working  world  with  his  own  eyes  and  when- 
ever possible  to  speak  with  the  operatives  face  to 
face.     He  began  to  carry  out  his  wishes  early.     In 
18 1 8   while  he  and  his   friend   Irving  were  still   at 
Kirkcaldy,  they  took  a  vacation  walking  tour  through 
the    Trossachs    and    visited    the    celebrated    model 
school  of  Robert  Owen  at  New  Lanark  Mills  on  the 
Clyde;  being  already  familiar  with  Owenite  teachings 
and  wishing  to  see  this  earliest  realization  of  them. 
Two  years  later,  when  Irving  had  become  assistant 
pastor   to   the   famous   Dr.    Chalmers   of  Glasgow, 
Carlyle  paid  him  a  visit  there,  and  talked  with  the 
"Radical  Weavers"  who  were  spreading  consterna- 
tion and  terror  far  and  wide  with  their  rioting.^    For 

^English  Traits,  17  (Centenary  Edition). 

*  It  was  during  the  1817  vacation  tour  that  Carlyle  first  saw  steamers 
on  the  water.  It  was  at  Greenock,  on  the  Firth  of  Clyde:  "queer  little 
dumpy  things,  with  a  red  sail  to  each,  bobbing  about  there  and  making 
continual  passages  to  Glasgow."  At  Liverpool  in  August,  183 1,  on  his 
way  to  London  with  the  manuscript  of  Sartor,  he  had  his  first  sight  of 
'steam-coaches,'  on  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  railway,  which  had 
been  opened  the  year  before.  It  was  not  until  1839  that  he  made  his 
first  journey  by  rail,  going  from  London  to  Preston:    "  the  whirl  through 


48  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

many  yeare.  at  least  up  to  1852,  when  he  retired  to 
the  seclusion  of  his  sound-proof  room  for  the  long 
grapple  with  the  history  of  Frederick  the  Great, 
he  seems  rarely  to  hkve  missed  an  opportunity  to 
see  for  himself  the  storm-centers  of  the  new  era.  In 
/'1 824  he  spent  two  months  in  Birmingham,  with  its 
V'thousana  funnels."  In  that  roaring  center  of  flame 
land  smoke,  there  must  have  been  little  which  his 
devouring  eyes  did  not  discover;  for  he  inspected 
jthe  blast-furnaces  and  the  iron-works  ("where 
150,000  men  are  smelting  the  metal"),  and  he  de- 
scended into  the  mines,  "poking  about  industriously 
into  Nature's  and  Art's  sooty  arcana."  Twenty- 
five  years  later  he  visited  the  iron  and  coal  indus- 
tries at  Merthyr  Tydvil,  Wales,  where  some  50,000 
"grimy  mortals"  were  "screwing  out  a  livelihood 
for  themselves  amid  their  furnaces,  pits,  and  rolling 
mills."  1  A  little  before  this,  in  1847,  he  had  been 
at  Manchester,  having  stopped  there  on  his  v/ay  to 
the  old  home  at  Scotsbrig,  "to  see  iron  works  and 
cotton  mills;  to  talk  with  some  of  the  leaders  of  the 
working  men,  who  were  studying  his  writings  with 
passionate  interest."  ^  While  at  Manchester  he  took 
a  day  to  visit  Rochdale  and  the  mills  of  John  Bright 
and  his  brother  Jacob.  A  talk  between  the  distin- 
guished anti-cornlaw  leader  and  the  gaunt  mystic 
of  Cheyne  Row  appears  not  to  have  gone  off  very 
smoothly:  "John  and  I  discorded  in  our  views  not 

the  confused  darkness,  on  these  steam  wings,"  was  one  of  the  strangest 
things  I  have  experienced — hissing  and  dashing  on,  one  knew  not 
whither."     (Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  III,  144.) 

»  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  IV,  44. 

Ubid.,  Ill,  351- 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       49 

a  little,  .  .  .  the  result  was  that  I  got  to  talking 
occasionally  in  the  Annandale  accent,  .  .  .  and 
shook  peaceable  Brightdom  as  with  a  passing  earth- 
quake." ^  At  another  time  when  visiting  at  Matlock 
Bath,  Carlyle  walked  out  to  have  a  look  at  Ark- 
wright's  Mills:  "one  of  them,  the  Cromford  one  if 
I  mistake  not,  the  Jirsf  erected  mill  in  England,  and 
consequently  the  Mother  of  all  Mills."  -  He  went 
through  the  workhouses  at  St.  Ives  and  the  'model' 
prisons  of  London;  and  from  workingmen  and 
agitators  on  all  sides  he  learned  about  a  great  many 
more  English  industries  and  institutions  than  he 
could  inspect  for  himself.  In  1846  he  spent  six  days 
observing  conditions  in  Ireland  under  the  guidance 
of  some  ardent  "Young  Irelanders,"  when  he  heard 
a  speech  at  Dublin  by  the  great  O'Connell,  "chief 
quack  of  the  then  world."  Three  years  later  he 
gave  up  five  weeks  to  a  more  extended  tour  of  ob- 
servation in  Ireland,  at  a  time  when  the  plight  of 
the  poor  seemed  desperate.  His  letters  and  journals 
are  strewn  with  comments  and  lamentations  upon 
the  social  disturbances  everywhere,  which  seemed 
to  loom  up  as  lurid  portents  of  disaster.  The  rick- 
burning  in  1830  "all  over  the  south  and  middle  of 
England";  "the  frightful  riots  at  Bristol"  in  1831, — 
"all  the  public  buildings  burnt,  and  many  private 
houses," — suggesting  to  Carlyle  that  "a  second 
edition  of  the  French  revolution"  was  within  the 
range  of  chances;  "the  paupers  of  Manchester 
helping  themselves  out  of  shops,  great  bands  of  them 
parading  with  signals  of  want  of  bread,"  in   1837; 

'  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  III,  352.  "^  New  Letters,  II,  41, 


so  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  poor  almost  at  his  own  door  in  Chelsea  tearing 
up  the  garden  palings  in  the  winter  of  1842,  and 
stealing  them  for  fuel;  the  marching  of  the  army  of 
discontented  Chartists  in  the  streets  of  London  in 
1848, — these   and  many   other  outbursts  of  insur- 
rectionary radicalism  he  made  record  of  as  ominous 
signs  of  the  times  during  the  disturbed  decades  of 
1830,  1840,  and  1850..^ 
j       The   transformations  wrought  upon   the   surface 
I    of  society,  as  well  as  in  its  structure,  by  the  coming 
\   of  this  new  order,  were  seen   and  understood  by 
j   Carlyle.     His  descriptions  of  them  are  in  language 
'     characteristically   vivid   and   powerful.     The   canal 
I     building  of  Brindley,  who  "chained  se'as  together," 
\    the  spinning  wheel  of  Arkwright,  who  gave  England 
i    "the  power  of  cotton,"  the  steam-engine  of  Watt, 
,   who  with  grim  brow  and  blackened  fingers  searched 
I  out    in     his    workshop     "the    Fire-secret," — these 
\   thaumaturgic  instrumentalities  of  industry  seemed 
1  to  Carlyle  fit  theme  for  a  modern  epic,  the  epic  of 
ti  Tools  and  the  Man!    If  not  yet  sung,  it  is  at  least 
) written,  he  says,  "in  huge  characters  on  the  face  of 
[this    Planet, — sea-miles,      cotton-trades,      railways, 
I  fleets  and  cities,   Indian   Empires,  Americas,   New 
^Hollands;  legible  throughout  the  Solar  System!  .  .  . 
The  Prospero  evoked  the  singing  of  Ariel,  and  took 
captive   the  world  with   those  melodies:   the   same 
Prospero  can  send  his  Fire-demons  panting  across 
/  all  oceans;  shooting  with  the  speed  of  meteors,  on 
If' cunning  highways,  from  end  to  end  of  kingdoms; 
and  make  Iron  his  missionary,  preaching  its  evangel 

^  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  II,  74,  179;  New  Letters,  I,  69. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       51 

to  the  brute  Primeval  Powers,  which  listen  and  obey: 
neither  is  this  small.  Manchester,  with  its  cotton- 
fuzz,  the  smoke  and  dust,  its  tumult  and  contentious 
squalor,  is  hideous  to  thee?  Think  not  so:  a  precious 
substance,  beautiful  as  magic  dreams,  and  yet  no 
dream  but  a  reality,  lies  hidden  in  that  noisome 
wrappage; — a  wrappage  struggling  indeed  (look  at 
Chartisms  and  such  like)  to  cast  itself  off  and  leave 
the  beauty  free  and  visible  there!  Hast  thou  heard, 
with  sound  ears,  the  awakening  of  a  Manchester, 
on  Monday  morning,  at  half-past  five  by  the  clock; 
the  rushing-off  of  its  thousand  mills,  like  the  boom 
of  an  Atlantic  tide,  ten-thousand  times  ten-thousand 
spools  and  spindles  all  set  humming  there, — it  is  per- 
haps, if  thou  knew  it  well,  sublime  as  a  Niagara,  or 
more  so.  Cotton-spinning  is  the  clothing  of  the 
naked  in  its  result;  the  triumph  of  man  over  matter 
in  its  means.  Soot  and  despair  are  not  the  essence 
of  it;  they  are  divisible  from  it.  ...  It  was  proved 
by  fluxionary  calculus,  that  steamers  could  never 
get  across  from  the  farthest  point  of  Ireland  to  the 
nearest  of  Newfoundland;  impelling  force,  resisting  | 
force,  maximum  here,  minimum  there;  by  law  of  \ 
Nature,  and  geometric  demonstration: — what  could 
be  done?  The  Great  Western  could  weigh  anchor 
from  Bristol  Port;  that  could  be  done.  The  Great 
Western,  bounding  safe  through  the  gullets  of  the 
Hudson,  threw  her  cable  out  on  the  capstan  of  New  \ 
York,  and  left  our  still  moist  paper-demonstration  / 
to  dry  itself  at  leisure."  ^ 
The   Scottish    brassmith's  idea^  traveling  on  fire- 

^  Past  and  Present,  138;  Chartism,  165,  174- 


52  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

wings,  was  in  truth  swiftly  overturning  "the  whole 
old  system  of  Society,"  as  Carlyle  saw;  "and,  for 
Feudalism  and  Preservation  of  the  Game,  preparing 
us,  by  indirect  but  sure  methods.  Industrialism  and 
the  Government  of  the  Wisest.  .  .  .    On  every  hand, 
the  living  artisan  is  driven  from  his  workshop,  to 
make   room    for   a   speedier,   inanimate   one.     The 
shuttle  drops  from  the  fingers  of  the  weaver,  and  falls 
into  iron  fingers  that  ply  it  faster.  .  .  .     Even  the 
horse  is  stripped  of  his  harness,  and  finds  a  fleet  fire- 
horse  yoked  in  his  stead.  .  .  .    The  giant  Steam  en- 
gine in  a  giant  English  nation  will  here  create  vio- 
lent demand  for  labor,  and  will  there  annihilate  de- 
mand. .  .  .     English  Commerce  stretches  its  fibres 
,over  the  whole  earth;  sensitive  literally,  nay  quiver- 
(  ing  in  convulsion,  to  the  farthest  influences  of  the 
'  earth.    The  huge  demon  of  Mechanism  smokes  and 
j  thunders,  panting  at  his  great  task,  in  all  sections  of 
j  English  land;  changing  his  shape  like  a  very  Proteus; 
iand  infallibly,  at  every  change  of  shape,  oversetting 
whole  multitudes  of  workmen,  and  as  if  with  the  wav- 
ing of  his  shadow  from  afar,  hurling  them  asunder, 
'  this  way  and  that,  in  their  crowded  march  and  course 
pf  work  or  trafiic;  so  that  the  wisest  no  longer  knows 
(his  whereabout."  ^    Very  evidently   from   such   ac- 
counts Carlyle  was  alive  to  the  movements  of  society 
that  were  going  on  underneath  the  surface.     The 
omnipotence  of  the  new  machinery,  scattering  work- 
shops everyw^'=^''e,  creating  "new  ganglions  of  popu- 
lation," new  multitudes  of  cunning  toilers,  and  mak- 
ing Britain  queen  of  the  industrial  world  and  mistress 

.  ^  Sartor,  82;  Signs  of  the  Times,  233 ;  Chartism,  130. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       53 

of  the   seas, — in   all    this   splendid   triumph   of  the 
British  worker  Carlyle  could  and  did  exult  with  his 
contemporaries.     But  he  could  not  share  in  the  un- 
clouded optimism  of  Macaulay  and  the  middle-class 
Liberals.    His  sense  of  the  glory  of  material  expan- 
sion was  disturbed  by  what  he  saw  taking  place  in 
the  very  structure  of  society.    More  than  all  else  the 
ever-increasing    separation,    economic    and    social,   j 
between  the  rich  and  the  poor  filled  him  with  alarm.  | 
"Wealth  has  accumulated  itself  into  masses,"  he  said; 
"and   Poverty,    also   in    accumulation   enough,   lies 
impassibly  separated  from  it;  opposed,  uncommuni- 
cating,  like  forces  in  positive  and  negative  poles.    The 
Gods  of  this  lower  world  sit  aloft  on  glittering  thrones, 
less  happy  than  Epicurus's  gods,  but  as  ignorant,  as 
impotent;  while  the  boundless  living  chaos   of   Ig- 
norance and  Hunger  welters  terrific,  in  its  dark  fury, 
under  their  feet."    Man  has  conquered  the  material 
forces  of  the  world,  but  he  reaps  no  profit  from  the 
victory.    "Sad  to  look  upon:  in  the  highest  stage  of^^ 
civilization,  nine  tenths  of  mankind  have  to  struggle 
in  the  lowest  battle  of  savage  or  even  animal  man, 
the  battle  against  Famine.    Countries  are  rich,  pros- 
perous in  all  manner  of  increase,  beyond  example; 
but  the  Men  of  these  countries  are  poor,  needier  than  /  J 
ever  of  all  sustenance  outward  and  inward.  .  .  .  The 
frightful  condition  of  a  Time,  when  public  and  private 
Principle,  as  the  word  was  once  understood,  having 
gone  out  by  sight,  and  Self-interest  being  left  to  plot,, 
and  struggle,  and  scramble,  as  it  could  and  would,! 
difficulties  had  accumulated  till  they  were  no  longer! 
to  be  borne,  and  the  spirit  that  should  have  fronted 


54  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

and  conquered  them  seemed  to  have  forsaken  the 
World; — when  the  Rich,  as  the  utmost  they  could 
resolve  on,  had  ceased  to  govern,  and  the  Poor,  in 
their  fast  accumulating  numbers,  and  ever  widening 
complexities,  had  ceased  to  be  able  to  do  without 
governing."  ^ 

The  many  graphic  pictures  that  Carlyle  drew  of 
the  miserable  poor  leave  the  reader  in  no  doubt  as  to 
the  character  of  the  impressions  which  their  condi- 
tion made  upon  his  mind.  He  was  not  a  sentimental- 
ist; for  a  lifetime  he  preached  and  practiced  the 
gospel  of  labor  as  an  antidote  to  sentimentahsm.  But 
his  soul  was  stirred  to  its  depths  by  what  he  saw  and 
read.  Dante's  vision  of  Hell  is  not  more  intense  and 
hardly  more  vivid.  "When  one  reads,"  he  said  in  a 
letter,  "of  the  Lancashire  Factories  and  little  children 
labouring  for  sixteen  hours  a  day,  inhaling  at  every 
breath  a  quantity  of /z^sz,  falling  asleep  over  their 
wheels,  and  roused  again  by  the  lash  of  thongs  over 
their  backs,  or  the  slap  of  'billy-rollers'  over  their 
little  crowns,  .  .  .  one  pauses  with  a  kind  of  amazed 
horror,  to  ask  if  this  be  Earth,  the  place  of  Hope,  or 
Tophet,  where  hope  never  comes!"  .  .  .  "Do  you 
remember,"  he  asked  in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  describing 
the  Manchester  Mills,  "do  you  remember  the  poor 
*  grinders'  sitting  underground  in  a  damp  dark  place, 
some  dozen  of  them?  .  .  .  Those  poor  fellows,  in 
their  paper  caps  with  their  roaring  grindstones,  and 
their  yellow  oriflammes  of  fire,  all  grinding  themselves 
so  quietly  to  death,  will  never  go  out  of  my  memory." 
No  less  indelible  was  his  memory  of  the  Welsh  miners. 

*  Characteristics,  18-19;  Corn-Law  Rhymes,  195. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       55 

"Such  a  set  of  unguided,  hard- worked,  fierce,  and 
miserable-looking  sons  of  Adam  I  never  saw  before. 
Ah  me!  It  is  like  a  vision  of  Hell,  and  never  will  leave 
me,  that  of  these  poor  creatures  broiling,  all  in  sweat 
and  dirt,  amid  their  furnaces,  pits,  and  rolling  mills." 
With  incomparable  literary  skill,  with  the  "light- 
ning's power  to  strike  out  marvellous  pictures  and  ''■. 
reach  to  the  inmost  of  men  with  a  phrase,"  as  George  ^ 
Meredith  pithily  says,  Carlyle  thus  described  the 
continents  of  squalid  dwellings  in  the  cities, — the 
crowds  of  gaunt  and  tattered  Irish,  swarming  into  the 
manufacturing  towns  and  lowering  the  standards  of 
life  of  the  British  workmen, — "the  thirty-thousand 
distressed  needle-women, — "  the  "half-a-million  I 
handloom  weavers,  working  fifteen  hours  a  day  in  \ 
perpetual  inability  to  procure  thereby  enough  of  the  | 
coarsest  food," — the  two  million  paupers  in  crowded 
Bastilles,  or  workhouses, — and  worst  of  all  the  moral 
degradation  of  these  grimy  and  discontented  masses. 
One  or  two  masterly  sketches  of  these  wrecks  of 
humanity,  set  adrift  by  the  industrial  upheaval,  are 
too  characteristic  of  Carlyle's  spiritual  reaction  to  be 
omitted.  "Passing  by  the  Workhouse  of  St.  Ives,  in 
Huntingdonshire,  on  a  bright  day  last  autumn,  I  saw 
sitting  on  wooden  benches,  in  front  of  their  Bastille 
and  within  their  ring-wall  and  its  railings,  some  half- 
hundred  or  more  of  these  men.  Tall  robust  figures, 
young  mostly  or  of  middle  age;  of  honest  counten- 
ance, many  of  them  thoughtful  and  even  intelligent- 
looking  men.  They  sat  there,  near  by  one  another; 
but  ih  a  kind  of  torpor,  especially  in  a  silence,  which 
was  very  striking.  In  silence:  for,  alas,  what  word  was 


56  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

to  be  said  ?  An  Earth  all  lying  round,  crying,  Come 
and  till  me,  come  and  reap  me, — yet  we  here  sit  en- 
chanted! In  the  eyes  and  brows  of  these  men  hung 
the  gloomiest  expression,  not  of  anger,  but  of  grief 
and  shame  and  manifold  inarticulate  distress  and 
weariness;  they  returned  my  glance  with  a  glance  that 
seemed  to  say  'Do  not  look  at  us.  We  sit  enchanted 
here,we  know  not  why.  The  Sun  shines  and  the  Earth 
calls;  and,  by  the  governing  Powers  and  Impotences 
of  this  England,  v/e  are  forbidden  to  obey.  It  is  im- 
possible, they  tell  us!*  There  was  something  that  re- 
minded me  of  Dante's  Hell  in  the  look  of  all  this;  and 
I  rode  swiftly  away."  Likewise  for  the  operatives  in 
Glasgow  the  time  was  out  of  joint,  and  the  world  was 
become  not  a  home  but  a  dingy  prison-house:  "Is  it 
a  green  flowery  world,  with  azure  everlasting  sky 
stretched  over  it,  the  work  and  government  of  a  God; 
or  a  murky-simmering  Tophet,  of  copperas-fumes, 
cotton-fuzz,  gin-riot,  wrath  and  toil,  created  by  a 
demon?  The  sum  of  their  wretchedness  merited  and 
unmerited  welters,  huge,  dark,  and  baleful,  like  a 
Dantean  Hell,  visible  there  in  the  statistics  of  Gin: 
Gin  justly  named  the  most  authentic  incarnation  of 
the  Infernal  Principle  in  our  times,  too  indisputable 
an  incarnation;  Gin  the  black  throat  into  which 
■wretchedness  of  every  sort,  consummating  itself  by 
calling  on  delirium  to  help  it,  whirls  down;  abdication 
of  the  power  to  think  or  resolve,  as  too  painful  now, 
i  on  the  part  of  men  whose  lot  of  all  others  would  re- 
quire thought  and  resolution;  liquid  Madness  sold  at 
ten-pence  the  quartern,  all  the  products  of  which  are 
and  must  be,  like  its  origin,  mad,  miserable,  ruinous, 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       57 

and  that  only!  If  from  this  black  unluminous  un- 
heeded InfernOy  and  Prisonhouse  of  souls  in  pain, 
there  do  flash  up  from  time  to  time,  some  dismalN 
wide-spread  glare  of  Chartism  or  the  like,  notable  to 
all,  claiming  remedy  from  all, — are  we  to  regard  it  as 
more  baleful  than  the  quiet  state,  or  rather  as  not  so 
baleful?"  What  was  threatening  among  the  lower 
orders  as  a  result  of  these  conditions  the  last  sentence 
in  the  passage  clearly  indicates.  It  was  revolt. 
"Revolt,"  says  Carlyle,  "sullen  revengeful  humor  of 
revolt  against  the  upper  classes,  decreasing  respect 
for  what  their  temporal  superiors  command,  decreas- 
ing faith  for  what  their  spiritual  superiors  teach,  is'  \ 
more  and  more  the  universal  spirit  of  the  lower 
classes.  .  .  .  To  whatever  other  griefs  the  lower 
classes  labor  under,  this  bitterest  and  sorest  grief 
now  superadds  itself:  the  unendurable  conviction 
that  they  are  unfairly  dealt  with,  that  their  lot  in  this 
world  is  not  founded  on  right."  ^  ^ 

Even  more  intense  than  his  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  the  workers,  if  it  were  possible,  was 
Carlyle's  scorn  of  the  idle  and  irresponsible  rich, 
the  new  rich  as  well  as  the  old  landed  artisocracy. 
The  Vsmug  contentment)  and  ^careless  detachmentj 
of  an  upper  class,  piling  up  wealth  with  miraculous 
rapidity  and^  spending  it  ostentatiously^'  upon  lux- 
uries and  selfish  pleasures,  were  so  utterly  opposed 
to  every  article  in  his  social  and  spiritual  creed  that 
his  descripion  of  it  at  times  seems  rather  a  splutter 
of  rage  than  rational  speech.     Readers  who  have 

'  Letters  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  356;  Froude,  Lifey  III,  351;  ibid.,  IV,  44; 
Chartism,  130;  Past  and  Present,  2;  Chartism,  132,  136. 


S8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

followed  him  in  this  field  will  remember  the  ex- 
plosions of  Sauerteig  and  Smelfungus  against  Mam- 
monism  and  Dilettantism,  against  the  monsters  of 
opulence  and  the  bloated  nabobs  of  the  new  era, — 
Plugson  of  Undershot,  Bbbus  of  Houndsditch,  and 
others  of  their  ilk.  "Are  these  your  Pattern  Men?" 
he  asks.  "They  are  your  lucky  (or  unlucky)  Gam- 
blers swollen  big.  .  .  .  Paltry  Adventurers  for 
most  part;  worthy  of  no  worship.  .  .  .  Unfortunate 
creatures!  You  are  fed,  clothed,  lodged  as  men 
never  were  before;  every  day  in  new  variety  of 
magnificence  are  you  equipped  and  attended  to.  .  .  . 
Mount  into  your  railways;  whirl  from  place  to  place, 
at  the  rate  of  fifty,  or  if  you  like  of  five  hundred 
miles  an  hour:  you  cannot  escape  from  that  inexor- 
able all-encircling  ocean-moan  of  Ennui."  ^  For 
the  most  part  the  older  aristocracy,  the  landowners, 
held  themselves  loftily  aloof  from  the  new  industrial- 
ism and  its  problems.  "What  do  these  highly 
beneficed  individuals  do  to  society  for  their  wages?" — 
asked  Carlyle  during  his  long  quiet  days  of  medita- 
tion at  Craigenputtock:  "Kill  partridges,"  he 
answered.  "Can  this  last?  No,  by  the  soul  that 
is  in  man  it  cannot,  and  will  not,  and  shall  not.  .  .  . 
Eleven  thousand  souls  in  Paisley  alone  living  on 
three  half  pence  a  day,  and  the  governors  of  the 
land  all  busy  shooting  partridges!"^  England  thus 
seemed  to  Carlyle,  in  his  savage-satirical  mood,  to 
be  made  up  of  two  sects,  the  sect  of  the  drudge  and 
the  sect  of  the  dandy, — a  division  running  through 

^  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  223 ,  286. 

2  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  II,  67;  III,  243. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       59 

the  entire  structure  of  society  and    threatening  it 
with  dissolution. 

Tn  the  presence  of  such  conditions,  when  great 
issues  were  at  stake  and  when  men  must  be  brought 
back  to  first  principles,  he  could  not  stand  aloof, 
indifferent  and  silent.  Various  special  interests  had 
their  voices  and  their  organs, — the  aristocracy,  the 
radicals,  the  Corn-law  agitators,  the  Poor-law 
reformers.  But  each  group  spoke  for  itself,  and 
spoke  one-sidedly  or  selfishly.  "The  dumb  poor," 
said  Carlyle,  "have  no  voice;  and  must  and  will 
find  a  voice — other  than  Rick-burnings,  Gunpowder, 
and  Chartism!"  It  was  not  enough,  moreover,  to 
pile  up  parliamentary  reports  upon  the  condition 
of  England,  with  facts  and  figures  as  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  rich  and  the  wretchedness  of  the  poor. 
Statistics  and  special  pleadings  were  well  enough 
in  their  way — and  Carlyle  read  them  extensively, — 
"but  it  must  be  the  utterance  o( principles^  grounded 
on  facts  which  all  may  see."  Men  must  be  led  back 
once  more  to  the  eternal  foundations  of  life,  to  the 
laws  of  God  and  Nature,  to  the  dictates  of  justice, 
to  the  rights  of  the  governed  and  the  duties  of  the 
governors.  The  great  solid  heart  of  England  must 
be  awakened!  Otherwise  reports  and  statistics  were  > 
as  so  much  chaff  before  the  wind.  Carlyle  occupied 
a  fortunate  position  from  which  to  speak  to  the 
conscience  of  his  contemporaries  with  the  voice 
of  the  prophet.  He  was  free  from  the  trammels  o 
party,  class,  or  sect,  free  to  condemn  any  evil  and 
to  advocate  any  remedy;  and  he  gloried  in  his 
freedom.     "No  King  or  Pontiff  has  any  power  overr 


r 


60  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

me.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  but  my  maker  whom  I 
call  Master  under  this  sky,"  he  wrote  to  his  sister 
in  1842,  in  words  that  accurately  express  his  con- 
victions for  any  period  of  his  life.  It  is  true  that  at 
certain  times  and  under  certain  circumstances  he 
did  cherish  hopes  that  he  might  become  identified 
with  social  problems  and  issues,  in  a  practical  way; 
as  when  in  1834  (a  time  of  almost  desperate  uncer- 
tainty in  his  private  fortunes),  he  would  gladly  have 
accepted  from  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Molesworth 
the  editorship  of  the  London  Review;  and  in  1867, 
the  year  of  the  second  reform  bill,  when  he  had 
some  desire  of  starting  an  independent  journal  with 
Froude  and  Ruskin.  Froude  is  indeed  authority 
for  the  statement  that  Carlyle,  after  the  publication 
of  Latter-Day  Pamphlets  in  1850,  imagined  that  he 
might  be  invited  by  the  government  "to  assist  in 
carrying  out  some  of  the  changes  which  he  had  there 
insisted  on."  ^  It  was  fortunate  that  these  hopes 
came  to  nothing,  and  that  he  was  left  with  his  in- 
endence.  Carlyle  called  himself  a  Bedouin,  and 
^  a  Bedouin  he  remained  to  the  end,  unattached, 
I  unchartered,  free  to  follow  no  will  but  his  own,  free 
I  to  strike  when  and  where  he  pleased. . 

Even  during  the  first  period  of  his  literary  career, 
the  period  of  the  critical  essays,  he  was  drawn  further 
and  further  into  discussions  of  the  state  of  society. 

^  Froude,  Lije  of  Carlyle,  IV,  48.  The  suggestion,  implied  in  the  above 
statement,  of  Carlyle's  holding  public  office  reminds  one  of  the  offer  to 
him  of  a  clerksl.ip  by  Basil  Montagu,  on  his  first  London  visit  in  1824: 
"the  faith  of  Montagu  wishing  me  for  his  clerk;  thinking  the  polar  bear, 
reduced  to  a  state  of  dyspeptic  dejection,  might  safely  be  trusted  tending 
rabbits." 


I  dep€ 


SANSCULOITISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       6i 

He  could  not  remain  content  to  write  reviews  when 
he  saw,  as  he  said  in  Sartor^  "a  world  becoming  dis-  1 

mantled,"      Poetry,    literary    criticism,     art,     and y 

philosophy  must  give  way  to  more  pressing  issues. 
"How  can  we  sing  and  painty''  he  asks,  "when  we 
do  not  yet  believe  and  see?''  ^  "He  thinks  it  the  only 
question  for  wise  men,"  reported  Emerson,  "instead 
of  art  and  fine  fancies  and  poetry  and  such  things, 
to  address  themselves  to  the  problems  of  society."  ^ 
From  1830  onward  Carlyle,  in  his  essays,  referred 
more  and  more  to  "our  age."  It  would  be  possible 
indeed  to  regard  all  of  the  later  and  greater  essays  as 
tracts  for  the  times,  though  to  do  this  would  be  to 
lay  emphasis  upon  certain  aspects  at  the  expense  of 
others.  In  the  Voltaire  (1828)  he  declared  against 
skepticism  and  denial;  in  the  Diderot  (1833)  he 
warned  his  readers  of  mechanism  and  a  mechanical 
age.  Even  in  the  Scott  (1837),  last  of  the  critical 
essays,  Carlyle  wrote  with  his  eye  upon  worldliness 
and  a  worldly  era.  On  the  other  hand  the  essay  on 
Bosweirs  Life  of  Johnson  (1832)  was  written  partly 
for  the  purpose  of  setting  before  a  drifting  social 
order  the  figure  of  a  man  who  held  fast  to  integrity 
and  duty;  while  in  the  second  Goethe  (1832)  there-was 
presented  the  true  prophet  and  ideal  character, — 
the  builder  who  had  wrought  out  for  himself  a  com- 
plete life,  in  contrast  to  the  halfness  in  the  lives  of 
men  of  Carlyle's  own  time.  In  the  Signs  of  the  Times 
(1829)  and  Characteristics  (1832)  the  attack  upon 
contemporary   thought  was  more  direct  and  open. 

'  Froude,  Lxje,  II,  299. 

*  Emerson,  Lectures  and  Biographical  Sketches,  497. 


62  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

The  monumental  histories  themselves,  although 
built  upon  a  solid  foundation  of  documentary  mate- 
rial, were  inspired  by  a  very  definite  social  philosophy. 

'The  French  Revolution  (1837)  set  forth  the  frightful 
/dangers  that  inevitably  threatened  a  nation  whose 
ysocial  order  was  founded  upon  class  privilege  and 
\^ancient  injustice;  while  the  Cromwell  (1845)  and  the 

r  Frederick  the  Great    (1858-1865)   reflected  Carlyle's 

I  stern  conviction  that  the  ship  of  state  could  not 
come  through  the  storms  that  beat  upon  it,  unless 

r  its  course  was  directed  by  a  great  captain.  The 
writing,  however,  in  which  his  social  philosophy  is 
'  most  fully  set  forth  and  which  form  the  basis  of  the 
present  study  are  the  following:  Sartor  Resartus 
(1831);  Chartism  (1839);  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship 
(1841);  Past  and  Present  (1843);  Latter-Day  Pamph- 
lets (1850);  with  which  should  be  included  Shooting 
Niagara  (iS6y),  a  parting  volley  at  advancing  democ- 
racy. In  these  books  it  is  not  the  political  propa- 
gandist nor  the  partisan  who  speaks.  It  is  not  even 
mainly  the  advocate  of  special  remedies,  although 
very  special  remedies  were  urged,  as  will  be  shown 
fin  the  next  chapter.  The  voice  heard  oftenest  is  the 
voice  of  the  moralist  and  seer,  speaking  directly  to 
the  hearts  of  Englishmen  upon  the  plain  facts  of 
(greedy  wealth  and  grim  poverty,  and  proclaiming 
i  with  an  assurance  born  out  of  fiery  trial  the  authen- 

■jtic  principles  of  justice  and  truth  as  the  basis  of  a 
jbetter  social  order.  It  was  a  voice  that  grew  harsher 
with  the  passing  of  events,  but  to  the  last  it  never 
wavered  from  its  conviction  that  there  could  be  no 
other  foundation  of  constitutions  and  creeds  alike 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       63 

than  the  righteousness  of  the  individual  soul.  It 
was  this  voice,  says  Froude,  that  came  to.  the  young 
generation  of  Englishmen  like  the  sound  of  ten 
thousand  trumpets,  "amidst  the  controversies,  the 
arguments,  the  doubts,  the  crowding  uncertainties" 
of  mid-Victorian  England.^ 

Carlyle's  criticism  of  his  age  starts  with  a  profound 
dissent  from  its  fundamental  beliefs,  and  from  the 
tendencies  which,  as  he  thought,  sprang  from  them. 
That  the  times  were  sick  and  out  of  joint  discerning 
thinkers  could  see  for  themselves.    According  to  the 
great  majority  of  these  observers  the  cause  of  social 
disorders  lay  in  bad  social  arrangements,  and  the 
cure  in  right  arrangements.  [The  panacea,  in  other  / 
words,  was  proper  rpachineryj^ — a  word  that  Carlyle  j 
caught  up,  in  a  time  ^^n^^normous  material  expansion,  | 
and  made  use  of  as  the  symbol  of  his  entire  attack. 
The  epoch,  in  its  work,  its  ways,  its  thought  and  its 
ideal,  was  mechanical, — that  was  its  primal  eldest 
curse.    There  was  a  pervading  belief  in  the  outer,  vis- 
ible, practical,  and  physical,  a  belief  that  the  possibil- 
ity of  reform  and  regeneration  rested  in  statistics, 
workhouses,  model  prisons,  acts  of  parliament,  phil- 
anthropical  and  co-operative  societies,  organizations,  ^ 
constitutions,  and  thirty-nine  articles   alone.     "Do   \ 
you  ask  why  misery  abounds  among  us?"  he  inquired. 
"I  bid  you  look  into  the  notion  we  have  formed  for 
ourselves  of  this  Universe,  and  of  our  duties  and  des- 
tinies there.  .  .  .     Faith,  Fact,  Performance  in  all 
high  and  gradually  in  all  low  departments,  go  about 
their  business;  Inanity  well  tailored  and  upholstered, 

^  Froude,  Life,  III,  249. 


64  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

mild-spoken  Ambiguity,  decorous  Hypocrisy  which  is 
astonished  you  should  think  it  hypocritical,  taking 
their  room  and  drawing  their  wages:  from  zenith  to 
nadir,  you  have  Cant,  Cant, — a  Universe  of  Incredi- 
bilities which  are  not  even  credited,  which  each  man 
at  best  only  tries  to  persuade  himself  that  he  credits. 
Do  you  expect  a  divine  battle,  with  noble  victories, 
out  of  this?"  ^    The  reiterated  cry  of  the  prophet  is 
familiar.     Religion  is  waning,  or  gone;  men   have 
closed  their  eyes  to  the  eternal  Substance  of  things 
and  opened   them  only  to  the  Shows  and  Shams. 
They  believe  only  in  "a  great  unintelligible  Perhaps." 
Their  only  hell  is   the  hell  of  not  succeeding — "a 
,  somewhat  singular  Hell."    Faith  in  the  vital,  invisi- 
;  ble,  infinite;  faith  in  love,  fear,  wonder,  enthusiasm; 
ii  faith  in  the  expression  of  these  mystic  forces  through 
\^  literature,  art,  and  religion,  has  vanished  from  society, 
Ueaving    it    sick,    introspective,    and    self-conscious. 
jThe  vital  has  retreated  before  the  mechanical.     "A 
/man's  religion,"  Carlyle  said,  "consists  not  in  the 
/  many  things  he  is  in  doubt  of  and  tries  to  believe,  but 
I  of  the  few  he  is  assured  of,  and  has  no  need  of  effort 
for  believing."  ^    But  what  is  the  religion  of  the  aver- 
age Britisher?    "He  believes  in  the  inalienable  nature 
of  purchased  beef,  in  the  duty  of  the  British  citizen  to 
fight   for  himself  when   injured,   and  other  similar 
faiths."  ^   His  faith  is  faith  in  stomach  and  purse,  not 
in  heart  and  head.    He  believes  that  happiness  de- 
pends upon  circumstances  without,  not  upon  spirit 
within;  and  he  looks,  if  he  looks  at  all,  to  political  and 
economic  adjustments  for  salvation.    For  his  sacred 

^  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  2^2.  ^  Ibid.,  266.  *  Ibid.,  267. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       65 

"interests"  must  be  preserved  whatever  else  is  lost. 
His  gospel,  therefore,  is  a  gospel  of  Mammonism  and 
dilettantism, — a  very  ancient  religion! 

This  materialistic  faith  found  complete  expression, 
according  to  Carlyle,  in  the  current  ethical  and  social 
philosophy  of  the  time;  in  the  utilitarianism  of  Ben- 
tham  and  his  disciples,  in  the  parliamentary  radical- 
ism of  this  group  and  their  followers,  and  in  the  blind 
dogmatism  of  the  "Dismal  Science,"  as  Carlyle  nick- 
named political  economy.  To  the  creeds  of  this 
school  of  thought  he  was  opposed  by  every  intuition 
of  his  nature.  Its  very  shibboleths  proved  that  its 
foundations  were  mechanistic: — f* cause  and  effect,/ 
"profit  and  loss,"  "cash-payment,"  "competition," 
"laissez-faire,'  "pleasure  and  pain,"  "self-interest," 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  labels  attached  by  a  generation 
of  quacks  to  their  nostrums, — as  though  the  ills  of  a 
stricken  society  could  be  instantly  cured  by  some 
"Morrison's  Pill!"  The  corner-stone  of  this  ma- 
chine-made philosophy  was  the  "steam  engine  Utili- 
tarianism" of  Bentham,  which  Carlyle  regarded  as 
the  inevitable  creed  of  an  epoch  of  gigantic  material 
growth;  but  which  he  none  the  less  condemned  as  the 
negation  of  every  principle  by  which  the  world  must 
be  reformed.  For  it  identified  virtue  with  self-inter- 
est; it  made  ethics  into  a  system  of  checking  and 
balancing  by  which  the  self-regarding  accountant 
might  extract  a  net  surplus  of  pleasure  as  against 
pain;  it  insisted  upon  rights  before  duties,  wages 
before  obligations;  it  promoted  the  physical  and 
finite  ends  of  man  at  the  expense  of  his  spiritual 
nature,  considering  him  a  compound  of  clashing  de- 


66  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

sires  and  fears  instead  of  a  creature  dependent  upon  a 
God  whom  he  should  reverence  and  obey.  Carlyle 
was  never  weary  of  venting  his  scorn  and  anger  upon 
men  who  hoped  to  regenerate  society  with  such  a 
creed.  For  a  man  to  fancy  himself,  he  said,  "  a  dead 
Iron-Balance  for  weighing  Pains  and  Pleasures  on, 
was  reserved  for  this  latter  era.  There  stands  he,  his 
Universe  one  huge  Manger,  filled  with  hay  and  this- 
tles to  be  weighed  against  each  other;  and  looks  long- 
eared  enough."  ^  Vitally  linked  with  this  individual- 
istic hedonism  were  the  teachings  of  Malthus  and  the 
doctrine  of  laissez-faire ,  which  drew  down  Carlyle's 
anathemas  no  less  scornfully;  for  they,  too,  left  the 
toiling  masses  without  guidance,  with  ominous  re- 
sults. "How  often,"  he  said,  "have  we  read  in  Mal- 
thusian  benefactors  of  the  species:  'The  working 
people  have  their  condition  in  their  own  hands;  let 
them  diminish  the  supply  of  laborers,  and  of  course 
the  demand  and  the  remuneration  will  increase!' 
Yes,  let  them  diminish  the  supply:  but  who  are  they? 
They  are  twenty-four  millions  of  human  individuals, 
scattered  over  a  hundred  and  eighteen  square  miles 
of  space  and  more;  weaving,  delving,  hammering, 
joinering;  each  unknown  to  his  neighbour;  each  dis- 
tinct within  his  own  skin.  They  are  not  a  kind  of 
character  that  can  take  a  resolution,  and  act  on  it, 
very  readily.  ...  O,  Wonderful  Malthusian  proph- 
ets! Millenniums  are  undoubtedly  coming,  must 
come  one  way  or  another:  but  will  it  be,  think  you,  by 
1  twenty  millions  of  working  people  .  .  .  passing,  in 
universal  trade-union,  a  resolution  not  to  beget  any 

^  Sarlor  Resartus,  152. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       67 

more  till  the  labor-market  become  satisfactory?" 
A  shade  more  rational  would  it  be,  continued  Carlylc 
in  acrid  Swiftian  vein,  to  supply  a  "Parish  Extermi- 
nator, or  Reservoir  of  Arsenic,  kept  up  at  the  public 
expense,  free  to  all  parishioners."  ^  To  the  same 
effect  was  his  condemnation  o{  laissez-faire^  which  left 
the  workers  to  scramble  along  as  best  they  could: 
"Whoever  in  the  press  is  trodden  down,  has  only  to 
lie  there  and  be  trampled," — a  monstrous  doctrine 
and  an  abrogation  of  every  duty  on  the  part  of  the 
governors  of  society.  Carlyle's  hostility  to  these  and 
the  allied  tenets  of  the  schools  grew  more  vehement 
as  he  saw  conditions  on  all  sides  becoming  worse.  He 
fulminated  against  a  soft-hearted  philanthropy  that 
coddled  criminals  in  model-prisons  and  left  uncared 
for  the  needy  and  deserving.  Your  scoundrel,  he 
declared,  could  not  be  reformed  by  applications  of 
rose-water!  He  fulminated  against  parliamentary 
radicalism  that  debated  eight  years  in  a  reformed 
parliament  and  left  the  English  workingmen  wringing 
their  hands  and  breaking  out  into  "five-point  Chart- 
ism," amidst  riots  and  hootings.  He  broke  forth  in 
anger,  too,  against  a  ceremonious  officialism  that 
heaped  up  mountains  of  red-tape  and  made  a  great 
fuss  about  smaller  matters;  while  the  ^'Condition  of 
England  Question"  was  left  to  take  care  of  itself  under 
the  guidance  of  "enlightened  selfishness."  Wher- 
ever Carlyle  looked  he  saw  a  world  in  the  grip  of 
machinery.  Mechanism  had  become  the  vampire  of 
national  life. 

The  evil  effects  of  this  materialistic  philosophy  and 

^Chartism,   183. 


68  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

political  economy  were  to  be  seen  everywhere.  They 
were  to  be  seen  in  bad  leaders  and  in  bad  work.    Most 

|of  all  they  were  evident  in  the  distressed  and  discon- 
jtended  workers.    Much  of  Carlyle's  severest  condem- 

Aiation  of  the  age  was  directed,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  against  the  old  aristocracy  and  the  new. 
Both  classes  wantonly  neglected  the  duties  of  leader- 
ship.    By  every  sign  of  the  times,  therefore,  they 

/were  doomed  to  extinction,  unless  they  should  speed- 
ily awaken'to  a  sense  of  their  responsibilities.  "What 
shall  we  say  of  the  Idle  Aristocracy,  the  Owners  of  the 
Soil  of  England;  whose  recognized  function  is  that  of 
handsomely  consuming  the  rents  of  England,  shoot- 
ing the  partridges  of  England,  and  as  an  agreeable 
amusement,  diletantte-ing  in  Parliament  and  Quar- 
ter-Sessions for  England?/  We  will  say  mournfully, 
in  the  presence  of  Heaven  and  Earth, — that  we  stand 
speechless,  stupent,  and  know  not  what  to  say! 
That  a  class  of  men  entitled  to  live  sumptuously  on 
the  marrow  of  the  earth;  permitted  simply,  nay 
entreated,  and  as  yet  entreated  in  vain,  to  do  nothing 
at  all  in  return,  was  never  heretofore  seen  on  the  face 
of  this  Planet.    That  such  a  class  is  transitory,  excep- 

Jtional,  and,  unless  Nature's  Laws  fall  dead,  cannot 
continue.  ...  A  High  Class  without  duties  to  do  is 
like  a  tree  planted  on  precipices;  from  the  roots  of 
which  all  the  earth  has  been  crumbling."  ^  The  fat 
luxury  and  the  grasping  brutality  of  the  British 
manufacturer  on  the  other  hand, — like  Hudson,  the 
railway  King,  who  swindled  poor  people  out  of  their 
savings    and    fared    sumptuously    upon    plundered 

^  Past  and  Present,  153,  154. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       69 

wealth, — these  too  must  be  transitory,  if  there  were 
any  justice  in  creation.  Relations  between  an  upper 
class  such  as  this  and  the  laboring  classes  were  of 
necessity  impersonal  and  mechanical.  The  old  feudal 
relations  of  master  and  servant  on  manor  or  in  guild 
had  given  place  to  what  Carlyle  called  the  "nomadic 
principle"  in  servantship.  Between  employers  and 
men,  in  modern  industry,  there  was  no  permanence 
of  tenure,  no  permanence  of  relation  anywhere. 
Cash-payment  was  the  sole  nexus.  The  laborer 
worked  during  long  hours  under  bad  conditions  for 
wages  alone.  He  was  a  mechanical  cog  in  a  mechani- 
cal wheel,  in  a  world  of  machinery!  "We  have  pro- 
foundly forgotten  everywhere  that  Cash-payment  is 
not  the  sole  relation  of  human  beings;  we  think, 
nothing  doubting,  that  //  absolves  and  liquidates  all 
engagements  of  man.  *My  starving  workers?'  an- 
swers the  rich  mill-owner:  'Did  not  I  hire  them 
fairly  in  the  market?  Did  I  not  pay  them,  to  the  last 
sixpence,  the  sum  covenanted  for?  What  have  I 
to  do  with  them  more?'  "  ^  yThe  disastrous  results  of 
these  unnatural  relations  were  more  and  more  evident 
in  the  soot  and  dirt  and  "squalid  horror  now  defac- 
ing England,"  and  in  what  Carlyle  condemned  as : 
"cheap  and  nasty"  work, — universal  shoddy  in  allj 
departments  of  industry.  "Do  you  know  the  shop,^ 
saleshop,  workshop,  industrial  establishment  tem- 
poral or  spiritual,  in  broad  England,  where  genuine 
work  is  to  be  had?" — he  asked.-  How  could  there  be 
a  genuine  product  when  the  workman  had  no  interest 
in  his  work  and  when  the  manufacturer,  under  the 

'  Past  and  Present,  \  26.  ^  Shooting  Niagara,  227. 


70  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

stress  of  competition,  was  only  concerned  in  turning 
out  ever  cheaper  and  more  showy  articles  for  the 
trade?  Under  such  conditions  collapse  of  standards 
was  inevitable.^ 

Bad  as  these  things  were,  the  growing  discontent 
of  the  workers  was  infinitely  worse.  Without  guid- 
ance from  the  upper  classes,  or  from  middle-class 
utilitarianism,  and  driven  to  desperation  by  their  own 
worsening  condition,  they  were  beginning  to  demand 
political  rights  as  their  only  hope  and  they  were 
threatening  to  revolt  if  these  rights  were  not  forth- 
with granted.  "The  expectant  millions,"  said  Car- 
lyle,  "have  sat  at  a  feast  of  the  Barmecide;  been 
bidden  fill  themselves  with  the  imagination  of  meat. 
What  thing  has  Radicalism  obtained  for  them;  what 
other  than  shadows  of  things  has  it  so  much  as  asked 
for  them?  Cheap  Justice,  Justice  to  Ireland,  Irish 
Appropriation-Clause,  Rate-Paying  Clause,  Poor- 
Rate,  Church-Rate,  Household  Sufl^rage,  Ballot- 
Question  'open'  or  shut:  not  things  but  shadows  of 
things;  Benthamee  formulas;  barren  as  the  east- 
wind!  An  Ultra-Radical,  not  seemingly  of  the  Ben- 
thamee species,  is  forced  to  exclaim:  *  The  people  are 
at  last  wearied.    They  say.  Why  should  we  be  ruined 

^  Cf.  "A  newly  built  house  is  more  like  a  tent  than  a  house;  no  Table 
that  I  fall  in  with  here  can  stand  on  its  legs;  a  pair  of  good  Shoes  is  what 
I  have  not  been  able  to  procure  for  the  last  ten  years."  This  was  Carlyle's 
entry  in  his  notebook  for  22  October,  183 1,  London.  To  this  Professor 
Norton  appends  the  following  comment:  "Even  in  later  life  Carlyle 
used  to  complain  humorously  that  no  tolerable  shoes  could  be  found  in 
London,  and  to  declare  that  his  only  pair  of  well-made  shoes  came  from 
an  old  shoemaker  in  Dumfries,  that  he  had  worn  them  for  years,  'had 
them  upper-leathered  and  under-leathered,'  and  they  would  last  a  long 
while  yet."  {Two  Note  Books,  206-7.)  He  wore  clothing  also  made  at 
home,  because  of  his  faith  in  Aniiandale  cloth  and  Annandale  tailors. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       71 

in  our  shops,  thrown  out  of  our  farms,  voting  for 
these  men?  ...  It  is  not  a  light  matter  when  the 
just  man  can  recognize  in  the  powers  set  over  him  no 
longer  anything  that  is  divine;  when  resistance 
against  such  becomes  a  deeper  law  of  order  than 
obedience  to  them;  when  the  just  man  sees  himself 
in  the  tragical  position  of  a  stirrer-up  of  strife!  "  ^ 
The  passage  is  significant,  for  it  shows  Carlyle's 
conception  of  the  crisis  towards  which  the  drama  of 
events  must  inevitably  tend.  The  culminating 
phenomenon_jQf  _jJie_jirnes,  Jio  less  terrible  than  in- 
"evi table,  was  rebellion,  widespread  rebellion  of  the 
masses  against  a  crushing  mechanism.^  And  th^s^ 
pTienomenon,  this  threatened  outburst  of  sansculot- 
tism,  Carlyle  called  democracy! 

To  him  as  to  i.-ianv  ot  h\<  contemporaries  the  rise  of  ' 
democracy  was  the  most  momentous  fact  of  the  \ 
century.  From  year  to  year  he  watched  its  progress, 
at  first  not  without  sympathy  and  hope  (he  was  in 
favor  of  Catholic  emancipation  and  the  first  Reform 
Bill,  and  he  looked  upon  extremes  of  wealth  as  un- 
just);- but  as  time  went  on  his  reaction  changed  to 
surprise  and  alarm,  until  democracy  came  to  mean 
social  and  political  ruin,  and  the  negation  of  govern- 
ment. If  the  reader  of  Carlyle  will  call  to  mind  the 
views  expressed  in  the  French  Revolution  (1837),  then 
in  Chartism  (1839),  Past  and  Present  (1843),  Latter- 

^  Chartism,   1 7 1-3. 

*  There  are  a  good  many  evidences  of  a  strong  radicalism  in  Carlyle's 
earlier  life:  e.  g.  (1830)  " Le  classe  la  plus  pauvre  is  evidently  in  the  way 
of  rising  from  its  present  deepest  abasement:  in  time,  it  is  likely,  the 
world  will  be  better  divided,  and  he  that  has  the  toil  of  ploughing  will 
have  the  first  cut  at  the  reaping."     {Two  Note  Books,  158.) 


72  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Day  Pamphlets   (1850),  and   still   later  in    Shooting 
Niagara    (1867),    together    with    the    various    opin- 
ions scattered  up  and  down  the  published  correspon- 
dence, he  will  have  no  difficulty  to  convince  him- 
self of  the  truth  of  this  statement.     Carlyle  dated 
modern    democracy    from    the   French    Revolution. 
The  day  of  the  procession  of  notables  at  Versailles  in 
1789  was  "the  baptism-day  of  democracy,"  as  it  was 
the   "extreme  unction   day  of  Feudalism."     From 
then  onward,  in  the  European  revolutions  of  1830 
and  1848,  in  the  Chartist  disturbances  at  home,  and 
in  the  steady  upward  push  of  the  lower  classes  every- 
where,   he    saw    that    the   popular    movement    was 
"making  rapid  progress  in  these  later  times,  and  ever 
more  rapid,  in  a  perilous  accelerative   ratio."  ^    Its 
progress  was  not  only  rapid,  it  was  irresistible.    "For 
universal    Democracy^    whatever   we    may    think    of 
it,  has  declared  itself  as  an    inevitable   fact  of   the 
days  in  which  we  live.  .  .  .     The  gods   have   ap- 
pointed it  so;  no  Pitt,  nor  body  of  Pitts  or  mortal 
I    creatures  can  appoint  it  otherwise.    Democracy  sure 
i    enough,  is  here:  one  knows  not  how  long  it' will  keep 
j    hidden  underground  even  in  Russia; — and  here  in 
England,  though  we  object  to  it  absolutely  in  the 
form  of  street-barricades  and  insurrectionary  pikes, 
I     and  decidedly  will  not  open  doors  to  it  on  those  terms, 
I    the  tramp  of  its  million  feet  is  on  all  streets  and  thor- 
\    oughfares,  the  sound  of  its  bewildered  thousandfold 
\  voice  is  in  all  thinkings  and  modes  and  activities  of 
I  men.    ^ 

What  was  the  meaning  of  this  inevitable  move- 

>  Chartism,   145.  *  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  7-8. 


I 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       73 

ment?  How  was  the  mighty  advancing  tide  of  the 
proletariat  to  be  understood?  This  was  the  supreme 
question.  "The  whole  social  wisdom  of  the  Present 
Time  is  summoned,  in  the  name  of  the  Giver  of 
Wisdom,  to  make  clear  to  itself,  and  lay  deeply  to 
heart  with  an  eye  to  strenuous  valiant  practice  and 
effort,  what  the  meaning  of  this  universal  revolt  of 
the  European  Populations,  which  calls  itself  Democ- 
racy, and  decides  to  continue  permanent,  may  be."  ^ 
The  answers  that  Carlyle  made  to  this  question 
have  often  been  misunderstood.  And  with  reason, 
since  his  opinions  not  infrequently  must  seem  con- 
tradictory even  to  the  devoted  Carlylean;  while 
by  more  than  one  casual  or  unfriendly  reader  they 
have  been  looked  upon  as  hardly  more  than  a  jumble 
of  ejaculations  or  inarticulate  shrieks  of  despair. 

Certain    of    Carlyle's    social    interpretations    are  \ 
wholly  in  the  spirit  of  democracy.     He  believed  in    > 
the  worth  of  the  individual,  without  regard  to  rank,     { 
creed,  or  capacity.     Peasant-born  himself,  working  )  1 
his  way  to  distinction   from   the  humblest  circum- 
stances,   he   had   good    reason    to    disregard    outer 
conditions  in  his  estimates  of  men.     His  father,  a 
stone  mason  of  Ecclefechan,  was  to  Carlyle  a  re- 
vered example  of  the  wisdom  and  worth  that  may 
go  with   the  lowliest  duties.     Burns  and  Johnson, 
two  of  his  best  loved  literary  heroes,   taught  him 
(if  he  needed  to  be  taught)  that  genius  could  create 
an  orbit  for  itself,  regardless  of  the  opinions  of  the 
literati.    Sartor  Resarius,  his  first  book  of  importance, 
rings  with  the  message  that  man  is  man,  a  child  of 

^  LaUer-Day  Pamphlets,  8. 


74  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

God,  whether  he  be  king,  priest,  poet,  or  toilworn 
craftsman.  To  the  discerning  eyes  of  Teufelsdrockh 
"the  star  of  a  Lord  is  little  less  and  little  more  than 
the  broad  button  of  Birmingham  spelter  in  a  clown's 
smock.  .  .  .  Wouldst  thou  rather  be  a  peasant's 
son  that  knew,  were  it  never  so  rudely,  there  was  a 
God  in  Heaven  and  in  Man;  or  a  duke's  son  that  only 
knew  there  were  two-and-thirty  quarters  on  the 
family-coach?"  ^  Because  of  such  democratic  opin- 
ions Carlyle  called  himself  in  1831  a  speculative 
radical.  He  habitually  cut  through  rank  and  cir- 
cumstances to  the  human  being  underneath.  Like 
a  poet,  like  another  Burns,  his  soul  was  profoundly 
stirred  by  the  thought  of  man  the  worker,  man  the 
sufferer,  bearing  within  his  nature  mystic  potentiali- 
ties for  better  things.  In  such  a  mood,  people  were  to 
him  anything  but  an  indiscriminate  herd.  "Masses 
indeed: — "  he  says  in  French  Revolution^  "every 
unit  of  whom  has  his  own  heart  and  sorrows;  stands 
covered  there  with  his  oWn  skin,  and  if  you  prick 
him  he  will  bleed.  .  .  .  Every  unit  of  these  masses 
is  a  miraculous  Man,  even  as  thou  thyself  art; 
struggling,  with  vision  or  with  blindness,  for  his 
I  infinite  Kingdom  (this  life  which  he  has  got,  once 
I  only,  in  the  middle  of  Eternities) ;  with  a  spark  of 
I  the  Divinity,  what  thou  callest  an  immortal  soul, 
I  in  him!"-  To  these  unawakened  units  Carlyle 
^  would  give  education  as  the  one  thing  needful: 
"The  poor  is  hungry  and  athirst;  but  for  him  also 
there  is  food  and  drink:  he  is  heavy-laden  and  weary; 
but  for  him  also  the  Heavens  send  Sleep,  and  of  the 

1  Sartor  Resartus,  19,  68.  *  French  Revolution,  I,  30. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       75 

deepest;  in  his  smoky  cribs,  a  clear  dewy  heaven  of\ 
Rest  envelopes  him,  and  fitful  glitterings  of  cloud- 
skirted  Dreams.    But  what  I  do  mourn  over  is,' that 
the  lamp  of  his  soul  should  go  out;  that  no  ray  of 
heavenly,  or  even  of  earthly  knowledge,  should  visit 
him;  but  only,  in   the  haggard  darkness,  like  two 
spectres,  Fear  and  Indigestion  bear  him  company. 
Alas,  while  the  Body  stands  so  broad  and  brawny, 
must  the  Soul  lie  blinded,  dwarfed,  stupefied,  almost 
annihilated!     Alas,  was  this  too  a  Breath   of  God; 
bestowed  in  Heaven,  but  on  earth  never  to  be  un-i 
folded! — That   there  should  one  Man  die  ignorant; 
who  had  capacity  for  Knowledge,  this  I  call  a  tragedy,  i 
were  it  to  happen  more  than  twenty  times  in  the 
minute,  as  by  some  computations  it  does.     The  mis- 
erable fraction  of  Science  which  our  united  Man- 
kind,  in   a   wide  Universe    of    Nescience,   has   ac- 
quired, why  is  not  this,  with  all  diligence,  imparted 
to  all?"  ^    Such  passages  contain  the  very  essence 
of  democratic  doctrine, — faith  in  the  worth  of  the  \ 
individual  irrespective  of  rank  and  in  the  power  of    \ 
education  to  awaken  and  develop  that  worth! 

Carlyle's  democracy  goes  even  further.  He  was  a 
vigorous  and  life-long  champion  of  three  great  , 
principles  which  underlie  modern  progress  and 
which  were  established  only  after  prolonged  popular  , 
struggle; — the  right  of  private  judgment  as  won  by 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  the  right  of  a  people 
to  revolt  against  prolonged  oppression,  and  the 
right  of  the  tools  to  him  who  can  use  them, — the 
last  two  rights  being  the  fruit  of  the  French  Revolu- 

•  Sartor  Resartus,  158. 


I 


76  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

tion.  Protestantism,  of  which  Martin  Luther  was 
the  evangel,  "was  a  revolt  against  spiritual  sover- 
eignties, Popes  and  much  else,"  by  which  liberty 
of  private  judgment  in  spiritual  affairs  was  enthroned 
among  mankind;  and,  as  such,  Protestantism  was 
"the  grand  root  from  which  our  whole  subsequent 
European  History  branches  out,  .  .  .  and  the  be- 
ginning of  new  genuine  sovereignty  and  order."  ^ 
If  the  Reformation  was  for  Carlyle  the  first  act  in 
the  struggle  for  freedom,  the  French  Revolution  was 
the  last,  without  which,  he  often  declared,  he  could 
not  have  understood  the  modern  world.  The  most 
memorable  event  "for  a  thousand  years,"  it  re- 
vealed to  him  facts  of  profoundest  significance  con- 
cerning democracy.  It  taught  him  that  the  people, 
the  canaille^  may  be  trusted  to  rise  up  against  im- 
memorial privilege,  and  that  position  and  power 
belong  not  to  a  worn-out  feudal  aristocracy  but, 
regardless  of  rank,  to  those  who  can  use  them  for 
the  good  of  the  state.  No  extremest  or  leveler  in 
any  age  could  have  been  more  contemptuous  than 
was  Carlyle  towards  the  futile  pomp  and  circum- 
stance of  ineffectual  kingship.  "Strip  your  Louis 
Quatorze  of  his  King-gear,"  he  said,  "and  there  is 
left  nothing  but  a  poor  forked  radish  with  a  head 
fantastically  carved.  .  .  .  To  assert  that  in  what- 
ever man  you  chose  to  lay  hold  of  (by  this  or  the 

^  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship, 11^.  Carlyle's  recognition  of  the  effects  of 
the  Reformation  in  establishing  an  era  of  private  judgment  is  weakened 
by  his  attempt  to  explain  that  "Uberty  of  private  judgment  must  at  all 
times  have  existed  in  the  world."  Strong  men  like  Dante,  he  says,  must 
always  have  followed  their  faith!  Followed  it,  yes,  but  with  what 
'liberty'?  Was  there 'liberty*  of  private  judgment  for  Galileo,  Huss,  or 
Tyndale? 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       ']^ 

other  plan  of  clutching  at  him);  and  clapt  a  round 
piece  of  metal  on  the  head  of,  and  called  king,- 
there  straightway  came  to  reside  a  divine  virtue,  so 
that  he  became  a  kind  of  god,  and  a  divinity  inspired 
him  with  faculty  and  right  to  rule  over  you  to  all 
lengths:  this, — what  can  we  do  with  this  but  leave 
it  to  rot  silently  in  the  Public  Libraries?"  ^  If  the 
gods  of  this  lower  world  will  sit  on  their  glittering 
thrones,  indolent  and  indifferent,  while  ignorant 
and  hungry  humanity  welters  uncared  for  at  their 
feet,  then  the  time  must  come  when  sansculottism 
shall  burst  up  from  beneath  and  sweep  away  gods 
and  thrones  alike,  leaving  their  places  cleared  for 
the  institution  of  real  government  and  real  leaders. 
Such  is  one  of  the  Carlylean  interpretations  of  the 
French  Revolution.  It  was  exactly  this  kind  of 
portentous  phenomenon  which  Carlyle  saw  threaten- 
ing to  return  again,  in  the  revolutions  of  1830  and 
1848,  in  the  Chartist  outbreaks,  and  in  the  Paris 
revolution  of  1871.  Concerning  this  latest  outbreak 
of  the  populace  he  wrote  to  his  brother:  "One  thing 
I  can  see  in  these  murderous  ragings  by  the  poorest 
classes  in  Paris,  that  they  are  a  tremendous  proc- 
lamation to  the  upper  classes  in  all  countries: 
'Our  condition,  after  eighty-two  years  of  struggling, 
O  ye  quack  upper  classes,  is  still  unimproved;  more 
intolerable  from  year  to  year,  and  from  revolution 
to  revolution;  and  by  the  Eternal  Powers,  if  you 
cannot  mend  it,  we  will  blow  up  the  world,  along 
with  ourselves  and   you.'"^     Xhe  other   principle 

'  Heroes  and  Hero-fForship,  170,  183. 
*  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  IV,  346. 


78  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

of  modern   democracy — the  principle  that  the  able 

man  does  not  belong  exclusively  to  one  rank  but 

may   be  found  in  any — was  first  victoriously  pro- 

Iclaimed  by  Napoleon,  who,  said  Carlyle,  "in   the 

'first  period,  was  a  true  democrat.  .  .  .     The  man 

{was  a  Divine  Missionary  though  unconscious  of  it; 

!  and  preached,  through  the  cannon's  throat,  that  great 

I  doctrine.  La  carriere  ouverte  aux  talens  (The  Tools 

to  him  that  can  handle  them),  which  is  our  ultimate 

Political  Evangel,  wherein  alone  can  Liberty  lie."  ^    It 

cannot  be  doubted,   therefore,   that  Carlyle   found 

in  sansculottism  an  indestructible  right  meaning,  a 

soul  of  truth  which  must  live  and  work  itself  out 

through    the   vicissitudes   of  time; — "till,   in   some 

/  perfected  shape,  it  embrace  the  whole  circuit  of  the 

world!     For  the  wise  may  now  everywhere  discern 

that  he  must  found  on  his  manhood,  not  on   the 

garnitures  of  his  manhood."  ^    It  was  this  truth  which 

Burns  had  made  immortal  in  the  lines: 

"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man's  the  gowd  for  a'  that," 

and  which  was  to  be  taken  up  as  the  battle-cry  of 
the  new  democracy. 

Why,  then,  was  Carlyle  a  foe  of  the  popular  move- 
ment? Why  did  he  loo-  upon  sansculottism,  or  the 
revolt  of  outraged  masses,  as  an  ebullition  of  bedlam? 
How  came  he  to  believe  that  all  the  evils  of  his  age, 
social,  industrial,  political,  were  summed  up  in  the 
word  democracy?  For  he,  no  less  than  Wordsworth 
(the  Wordsworth  of  1820  and  after),  looked  upon 

^  Heroes  and  Ilero-Worship,  220;  Sartor  Resartus,  123. 
^French  Revolution,  III,  264. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       79 

advancing  democracy  as  upon   a  rising  flood   that 
threatened  to  sweep  away  the  ancient  landmarks  and  , 
leave  society  in  helpless  confusion.    The  career  must  C 
be  open  to  the  talents,  yes,  and  every  man  should  be  ) 
free  to  become  all  that  he  was  created  capable  of  ' 
becoming, — to  so  much  of  the  democratic  creed  he 
attached  his  undying  faith.    But  this  gifted  son  of  an  "^ 
Annandale  peasant  had  no  faith  in  the  capacity  of  the    I 
average    man    for    independent    collective    action,  *J 
whether  industrial  or  political, — at  least  as  he  saw  the    S 
average  man  in  his  own  time.     Hence  his  life-long      ; 
opposition  to  the  new  movement.     The  individuals 
that  made  up  the  populations  of  the  rising  industrial 
centers  were  so  many  ignorant   and  servile  units, 
without   self-control    and   without   vision,    born    to 
follow  the  guidance  of  wise  leaders.    Carlyle's  creed 
with  respect  to  the  masses  is  graphically  set  forth  in  a 
characteristic  passage  from  his  essay  on  Boswell's  Life 
of  Johnson:  "Mankind  sail  their  life-voyage  in  huge    ^ 
fleets,  following  some  single  whale-fishing  or  herring- 
fishing  Commodore:  the  log-book  of  each  differs  not, 
in  essential  purport,  from  that  of  any  other:  nay  the 
most  have  no  legible  log-book  (reflection,  observation 
not  being  among  their  talents);  keep  no  reckoning, 
only  keep  in  sight  of  the  flagship, — and  fish.  .  .  .    Or, 
the  servile  imitancy^  and  yet  also  a  nobler  relationship 
and  mysterious  union  to  one  another  which  lies  in 
such  imitancy,  of  Mankind  might  be  illustrated  under 
the  different  figure,  itself  nowise  original^  of  a  Flock      1 
of  Sheep.    Sheep  go  in  flocks  for  three  reasons:  First,  \ 
because  they  are  of  a  gregarious  temper,  and  love  to  be 
together:  Secondly,  because  of  their  cowardice;  they  / 


8o  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

/are  afraid  to  be  left  alone:  Thirdly,  because  the  com- 
/mon  run  of  them  are  dull  of  sight,  to  a  proverb,  and 
I  can  have  no  choice  in  roads;  sheep  can  in  fact  see 
nothing;  in  a  celestial  Luminary,  and  a  scoured  pew- 
I  ter  Tankard,  would  discern  only  that  both  dazzled 
/  them,  and  were  of  unspeakable  glory.  How  like  their 
fellow-creatures  of  the  human  species!  Men  too, 
as  was  from  the  first  maintained  here,  are  gregarious; 
then  surely  faint-hearted  enough,  trembling  to  be  left 
by  themselves;  above  all,  dull-sighted,  down  to  the 
verge  of  utter  blindness.  Thus  are  we  seen  ever 
running  in  torrents,  and  mobs,  if  we  run  at  all;  and 
after  what  foolish  scoured  Tankards,  mistaking  them 
for  Suns!  Foolish  Turnip-lanterns  likewise,  to  all 
appearance  supernatural,  keep  whole  nations  quak- 
ing, their  hair  on  end.  Neither  know  we,  except  by 
blind  habit,  where  the  good  pastures  lie:  solely  when 
the  sweet  grass  is  between  our  teeth,  we  know  it, 
and  chew  it;  also  when  grass  is  bitter  and  scant,  we 
know  it, — and  bleat  and  butt:  these  last  two  facts  we 
know  of  a  truth  and  in  very  deed.  Thus  do  Men  and 
Sheep  play  their  parts  on  this  Nether  Earth;  wander- 
ing restlessly  in  large  masses,  they  know  not  whither; 
for  most  part,  each  following  his  neighbour,  and  his 
own  nose."  ^  Over  and  over  again,  with  increasing 
fierceness  as  he  grew  older  and  often  in  Brobding- 
nagian  breadth  of  phrase,  he  returned  to  the  charge 
that  the  people  were  greedy  blockheads,  gullible  and 
bribeable,  wholly  incapable  of  anything  but  "beer 
and  balderdash,"  unless  wisely  directed  by  their 
superiors,  the  Bell-weathers!    "The  poison  of  them," 

» Essays,  IV,  88. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       8i 

A 


he  said,  "is  not  intellectual  dimness  chiefly,  but 
torpid  unveracity  of  heart:  not  mistake  of  road,  but 
want  of  pious  earnestness  in  seeking  your  road. 
Insincerity,  unfaithfulness,  impiety: — careless  tum- 
bling and  buzzing  about,  in  blind,  noisy,  pleasantly 
companionable  'swarms,'  instead  of  solitary  question- 
ing of  yourself  and  of  the  Silent  Oracles,  which  is  a 
sad,  sore  and  painful  duty,  though  a  much  incumbent 
one  upon  a  man.  .  .  .  Certain  it  is,  there  is  nothing 
but  vulgarity  in  our  People's  expectations,  resolu- 
tions, or  desires,  in  this  Epoch.  It  is  all  a  peaceable 
mouldering  or  tumbling  down  from  mere  rottenness 
and  decay;  whether  slowly  mouldering  or  rapidly 
tumbling,  there  will  be  nothing  found  of  real  or  true 
in  the  rubbish-heap,  but  a  most  true  desire  of  mak- 
ing money  easily,  and  of  eating  it  pleasantly."  ^  Al- 
though some  of  Carlyle's  explosions  were  repented  of 
in  the  silences  of  old  age,  they  suggest  even  better 
than  less  splenetic  outbursts  the  depth  of  his  distrust 
of  the  people:  as  for  example  his  well-known  descrip-N 
tion  of  Americans  as  "eighteen  millions  of  the  greatest 
bores  ever  seen  in  this  world  before";  and  the  hardly 
less  familiar  characterization  of  his  own  country- 
men as  "twenty-seven  millions  mostly  fools."  ^  \ 
Such  were  the  creatures,  so  thought  the  prophet  in 
his  ultra-atrabiliar  moods,  whom  all  our  yesterdays 
have  lighted  the  way  to  dusty  death. 

Amidst  these  stupid  millions,  called  the  populace 
or  the  mob,  there  smouldered  the  dreadful  fire  of 
rebellion,  useful  enough  on  occasions  when  it  should 
flare  up  and  consume  histrionic  kings,  immemorial 

^Essays,  VII,  223,  216.  "^Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  18,  177. 


82  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

privilege,  and  centenarian  abuses,  as  it  did  in  the 
French  Revolution.  But  how  if  the  power  which 
dethroned  Kings  should  end  by  enthroning  itself? 
How  if  the  "multitudinous  canaille"  were  to  follow 
the  beheading  of  Louis  XVI  with  the  Terror?  The 
Reign  of  Terror,  in  fact,  was  to  Carlyle  a  perfect 
symbol  of  democracy  triumphant, — "Dominant  Sans- 
culottism,"  he  called  it.  Referring  to  the  September 
Massacres  and  the  work  of  the  National  Convention 
.  which  declared  France  a  republic,  he  said:  "France 
\  has  looked  upon  Democracy;  seen  it  face  to  face.  .  .  . 
vLiberty,  Equality,  Fraternity:  not  vestures,  but  the 
Wish  for  vestures!  The  Nation  is  for  the  present, 
iguratively  speaking,  naked;  it  has  no  rule  or  vesture; 
)ut  is  naked, — a  Sanscullotic  Nation."  ^  Democracy, 
[hen,  was  revolt  trying  to  govern.  The  result  was 
anarchy.  This  was  the  lesson  which  Carlyle  learned 
from  the  French  Revolution  and  by  which  he  inter- 
preted ^the  popular  uprisings  throughout  his  century. 
Repeatedly  he  likened  the  mob  outbursts  of  Chartism, 
as  well  as  later  disturbances,  to  the  Parisian  mobs  in 
revolutionary  days.  "  Democracy,"  he  wrote  in  1 867, 
"the  gradual  uprise,  and  rule  in  all  things,  of  roaring, 
million-headed,  unreflecting,  darkly  suffering,  darkly 
sinning  'Demos,*  come  to  call  its  old  superiors  to 
account,  at  its  maddest  of  tribunals."  ^  "We  are," 
he  said  in  his  Edinburgh  University  rectorial  address, 
which  may  be  taken  as  his  farewell  utterance  to  the 
jBritish  public,  "we  are  in  an  epoch  of  anarchy."' 
This  address  was  delivered  during  the  agitation  pre- 

'  French  Revolution,  III,  57,  58.  *  Reminiscences,  II,  271. 

*  Essays,  VII,  194. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       83 

ceding  the  reform   bill  of  1867,  which  proposed  a 
further  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  which  therefore 
meant  to  Carlyle  fresh  floods  of  sanscullotism.    And 
democracy  meant  to  him  not  only  a  method  of  rebel- 
lion, a  consummation  of  no  government  and  laissez- 
faire;  it  meant  also  the  despair  of  finding  any  leaders 
to  guide  men.    In  casting  out  false  leaders  it  cast  out 
also  belief  in  leadership  and   fostered   the  horrible 
delusion  that  men  could  do  without  guidance.    The 
freedom  which  democracy  substituted  was  freedom 
to  the  appetites  of  base  men,  who  would  henceforth 
run   their  course  "in   the  career  of  the  cheap  and 
nasty."    Worse  still,  democracy  was  the  throwing  off 
of  all  right  relations  between  man  and  man,  keeping 
society  down  to  the  basis  of  cash-nexus  and  laissez- 
faire.     "Certainly   the  notion   everywhere  prevails    \ 
among  us  too,"  said  Carlyle,  "and  preaches  itself    | 
abroad  in  every  dialect,  uncontradicted  anywhere  so    / 
far  as  I  can  hear,  that  the  grand  panacea  for  social   / 
woes  is  what  we  call  'enfranchisement,'  'Emancipa-  / 
tion';   or,    translated   into   practical   language,    the/ 
cutting  asunder  of  human  relations,  wherever  they 
are  found  grievous,  as  is  like  to  be  pretty  universally 
the  case  at  the  rate  we  have  been  going  for  some  gen- 
erations past.    Let  us  all  be  '  free'  of  one  another;  we 
shall  then  be  happy.    Free,  without  bond  or  connec-; 
tion  except  that  of  cash-payment;  fair  day's  wage  fori 
the  fair  day's  work;  bargained  for  by  voluntary  con-\ 
tract,  and  law  of  supply-and-demand:  this  is  thought  | 
to  be  the  true  solution  of  all  difficulties  and  injustices 
that  have  occurred  between  man  and  man."  ^ 

^Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  21. 


84  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Carlyle's  disbelief  in  democracy  thus  carried  with 
I  it  a  disbelief  in  the  machinery  of  democracy, — the 
franchise  and  the  ballot, — together  with  a  growing 
distrust  in  the  capacity  of  even  limited  representa- 
tive assemblies  to  transact  business.  His  deliberate 
opinion  is  well  summarized  by  Froude,  who  says: 
'  "Under  any  conceivable  franchise  the  persons  chosen 
would  represent  the  level  of  character  and  intelligence 
I  in  those  who  chose  them,  neither  more  nor  less,  and 
'  therefore  the  lower  the  general  average  the  worse  the 
\  government  would  be."  ^  Universal  suffrage  would 
[  place  political  power  into  the  hands  of  the  majority; 
and  if  the  majority  were  stupid  and  debased,  your 
result  would  not  be  government  but  anarchy.  The 
ballot  for  all,  therefore,  was  to  Carlyle  a  perfect 
consummation  of  political  evil.  It  gave  liberty  to 
bad  men  to  inflict  their  badness  upon  society;  it  sub- 
jected wisdom  to  folly;  it  reduced  all  men  to  "equal- 
ity," making  "  the  vote  of  a  Demerara  Nigger  equal 
and  no  more  to  that  of  a  chancellor  Bacon,"  and 
"Judas  Iscariot  to  Jesus  Christ."  ^  The  majority 
were  foolish  small  men  and  they  would  never  choose 
above  their  own  heads.  "There  are  such  things  as 
multitudes  all  full  of  beer  and  nonsense,  even  of  in- 
sincere factitious  nonsense,  who  by  hypothesis  cannot 
but  be  wrong.  .  .  .  Your  Lordship,  there  are  fools, 
cowards,  knaves,  and  gluttonous  traitors  true  only  to 
their  own  appetite,  in  immense  majority,  in  every 
rank  of  life;  and  there  is  nothing  frightfuler  than  to 
see  these  voting  and  deciding.  .  .  .  No  people  or 
populace,  with  never  such  ballot-boxes,  can  select 

1  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  IV,  296.  *  Essays,  VII,  91,  203. 


SANSCULOTTISM  AND  ITS  PROPHET       85 

such  man  for  you  {i.  e.,  a  true  leader);  only  the  man  of 
worth  can  recognize  worth  in  man; — to  the  common- 
place man  of  no  or  of  little  worth,  you,  unless  you 
wish  to  be  misled,  need  not  apply  on  such  an  occasion. 
Those  poor  Tenpound  Franchisers  of  yours,  they  are 
not  even  in  earnest;  the  poor  sniffing,  sniggering 
Honourable  Gentlemen  they  send  to  Parliament  are 
as  little  so.  .  .  .  I  can  tell  you  a  million  blockheads 
looking  authoritatively  into  one  man  of  what  you  call 
Genius,  or  noble  sense,  will  make  nothing  but  non- 
sense out  of  him  and  his  qualities,  and  his  virtues  and 
defects,  if  they  look  till  the  end  of  time."  ^  Carlyle 
regarded  the  parliaments  of  his  day  as  representing 
not  the  collective  wisdom  of  the  nation,  but  its  con- 
densed folly.  He  had  no  antagonism  to  the  ballot  if 
exercised  by  loyal,  genuine  men;  but  "if  of  ten  men 
nine  are  recognizable  as  fools,  which  is  a  common 
calculation,  how,  in  the  name  of  wonder,  will  you  ever 
get  a  ballot-box  to  grind  you  out  a  wisdom  from  the 
votes  of  these  ten  men  ? "  ^ 

Democracy,  therefore,  or  the  rule  of  undisciplined 
masses,  must  inevitably  lead  to  the  rule  of  the  auto- 
crat, whether  benevolent  or  despotic;  since  anarchy 
is  a  self-canceling  business.  Cromwell  had  to  order 
the  Rump  Parliament  to  quit,  and  Napoleon  had  to 
quell  the  Parisian  mobs  with  a  whiff  of  grapeshot.\ 
"More  tolerable  is  the  drilled  Bayonet-rank,"  said' 
Carlyle,  "than  the  undrilled  Guillotine.  .  .  .  While 
man  is  man,  some  Cromwell  or  Napoleon  is  the 
necessary  finish  for  a  Sansculottism."  ' 

^  LatUr-Day  Pamphlets,  206,  120.  "^  Ibid.,  202. 

^French  Revolution,  III,  244;  Heroes,  188. 


CHAPTER  III 
THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR 

I  "A  man  perfects  himself  by  working.  Foul  jungles  are 
cleared  away,  fair  seedfields  rise  instead,  and  stately 
cities;  and  withal  the  man  himself  first  ceases  to  be  a 
jungle  and  foul  unwholesome  desert  thereby.  .  .  .  No 
Working  World,  any  more  than  a  Fighting  World,  can  be 
led  on  without  a  noble  Chivalry  of  Work,  and  laws  and 
fixed  rules  which  follow  out  of  that, — far  nobler  than  any 
Chivalry  of  Fighting  was." — Carlyle. 

In  spite  of  his  sweeping  denunciations  of  sanscul- 
ottic  radicalism,  Carlyle  knew  that  there  was  more, 
far  more,  in  the  popular  uprisings  of  his  time  than 
mere  rebellion  against  false  gods.  He  had  vision  keen 
enough  to  see  in  the  democratic  movement  not  only 
a  determined  revolt  against  leaders  that  were  false, 
but  an  effort,  albeit  blind  and  groping,  to  discover 
leaders  that  were  true.  So  understood,  democracy 
had  in  it  a  ray  of  hope,  even  though  centuries  of  con- 
fusion might  pass  before  the  promise  should  be  real- 
ized. "But  oppression  by  your  Mock-Superiors  well 
shaken  off,  the  grand  problem  yet  remains  to  solve: 
That  of  finding  government  by  your  Real-Superiors! 
Alas,  how  shall  we  ever  learn  the  solution  of  that, 
benighted,  bewildered,  sniffing,  sneering,  God-forget- 
ting unfortunates  as  we  are?  It  is  a  work  for  cen- 
turies; to  be  taught  us  by  tribulation,  confusions; 
insurrections,  obstructions;  who  knows  if  not  by  con- 
flagration and  despair!    It  is  a  lesson  inclusive  of  all 

86 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  87 

other  lessons;  the  hardest  of  all  lessons  to  learn.  .  .  J 
Cannot  one  discern,  too,  across  all  democratic  tur- 
bulence, clattering  of  ballot-boxes  and  infinite  sorrow- 
ful jangle,  needful  or  not,  that  this  at  bottom  is  the 
wish  and  prayer  of  all  human  hearts,  everywhere  and 
at  all  times:  'Give  me  a  leader;  a  true  leader,  not  a 
false  sham-leader;  a  true  leader,  that  he  may  guide  me     1 
on  the  true  way,  that  I  may  be  loyal  to  him,  that  I     1 
may  swear  fealty  to  him  and  follow  him,  and  feel      1 
that  it  is  well  with  me.'  .  .  .    All  that  Democracy 
ever  meant  lies  there:  the  attainment  of  a  truer  and      • 
truer  Aristocracy^  or  government  again  by  the  Best.''  ^      \ 
The  tragic  mistake  of  democracy  was  that  it  taught       I 
people  to  believe  that  the  end  of  government  could  be 
secured  by  the  ballot  alone  and  by  other  mere  politi- 
cal and  economic  arrangements  such  as  parliamen- 
tary speeches,  causes,  debatings,  universal  hip-hip- 
hurrahing,  oceans  of  beer  and  balderdash,  copiously 
supplemented  with  laws,  statistics,  reports,  and  co- 
operative societies.     Could  the  ballot  ever  raise  the 
best  to  places  of  control,  so  long  as  it  was  exercised  by 
a  dim-eyed  greedy  multitude  who  always  voted  for 
their  kind?    Your  dull  clod-pole  and  your  haughty 
featherhead  alike  must  be  made  to  discern  and  re- 
spect talent  before  they  will  raise  it  to  positions  of 
leadership.     It  takes  a  man  of  worth  to  recognize   , 
worth  in  men.    "It  is  the  noble  People  that  makes   1 
the  noble  Government."     Accordingly,  to  Carlyle,    ' 
political  reform  as  a  panacea,  or  a  Morrison's  Pill\ 
for  the  social  evils  of  the   times  was  futile  unless  \ 

•  Past  and  Present,  189  {cf.  ibid.,  215);  Chartism,  146  (cf.  Latter-Day 
Pamphlets,  92);  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  102. 


-h 


t 


88  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

(founded  upon  moral  reform.  The  ancient  mischief 
was  not  that  men  could  not  vote,  but  that  they  were 
weak,  foolish,  and  sinful.  Social  evils  arose  from  a 
debased  social  order,  and  a  debased  social  order  was 
nly  another  way  of  saying  that  men  as  individuals 
were  self-centered  and  evil.  "We  may  depend  upon 
|it,"  said  Carlyle  characteristically,  "where  there  is  a 
iPauper,  there  is  sin;  to  make  one  Pauper  there  go 
[many  sins.  Pauperism  is  our  Social  Sin  grown  mani- 
fest." ^  Moral  reform,  therefore,  should  precede  polit- 
ical reform,  and  moral  reform  must  begin  with  the 
individual.  Here  was  the  rock  upon  which  the  new 
order  must  be  built. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  central  aim  of 
Carlyle's  life-work,  into  the  accomplishments  of 
which  he  threw  the  weight  of  all  his  great  powers,  was 
to  save  man  (of  whatever  class  or  station)  from  the 
crushing  effects  of  industrialism  fby  restoring  to  him 
faith  in  his  humanity;  and  thus  to  create  through  him 
and  his  fellows  a  new  society  resting  upon  humane 
relations.  To  mechanics  he  opposed  dynamics.  To 
the  logical,  calculating,  scientific,  severely  rational- 
istic temper,  he  opposed  the  mystical,  spontaneous, 
poetic,  and  imaginative  temper.  He  pleaded  for  per- 
sonal inner  freedom,  for  a  spirit  of  reverence,  for  a 
reawakening  of  faith  in  the  inarticulate,  unfathom- 
able forces  of  the  soul.  He  pleaded  for  a  renewal  in 
man  of  his  ancestral  sense  of  wonder  in  the  common 
things  of  life,  since  the  truly  supernatural  is  forever 
the  natural.  He  wished  to  see  men  rediscover  the 
wisdom  and  heroic  worth  of  their  forefathers,  the 

'  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  134. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  89 

generations  of  workers  who  builded  better  than  theyl 
.  knew.  .  Most  of  all,  like  a  prophet  of  Israel,  he  calledj 
upon  his  contemporaries  to  re-enthrone  righteousness 
and  justice  in  their  hearts  as  the  source  of  every 
energy  which  could  permanently  recreate  the  world 
in  which  they  lived.  No  less  passionately  than 
Wordsworth,  Carlyle  believed  that  the  "high  in- 
stincts" in  human  nature  must  be  kept  alive,  if  man 
is  to  survive  the  extraordinary  risks  of  an  indus- 
trial age.  He  recognized  the  value  of  machinery  as 
frankly  as  did  Arnold,  but  he  saw  just  as  clearly  its 
dangers  to  the  moral  interests  of  man.     "It  seems 


dangers  to  tne  moral  mterests  or  man.       it  seems  \ 
clear  enough,"  he  said,  "that  only  in  the  right  co-   \ 
ordination  of  the  two,  and  the  vigorous  forwarding  of     \ 

\ 
\ 


both^  does  our  true  line  of  action  lie.  Undue  cultiva-  '• 
tion  of  the  inward  or  Dynamical  province  leads  to  \ 
idle,  visionary,  impracticable  courses,  and,  especially 
in  rude  eras,  to  Superstition  and  Fanaticism,  with 
their  long  train  of  baleful  and  well-known  evils. 
Undue  cultivation  of  the  outward,  again,  though  less 
immediately  prejudiced,  and  even  for  the  time  pro- 
ductive of  many  palpable  benefits,  must,  in  the 
long-run,  by  destroying  Moral  Force,  which  is  the 
parent  of  all  other  Force,  prove  not  less  certainly,  and 
perhaps  still  more  hopelessly,  pernicious.  This,  we 
take  it,  is  the  grand  characteristic  of  our  age.  By  our 
skill  in  Mechanism,  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  in  the 
management  of  external  things  we  excel  all  other 
ages;  while  in  whatever  respects  the  pure  moral 
nature,  in  true  dignity  of  soul  and  character,  we  are 
perhaps  inferior  to  most  civilised  ages."  ^ 

*  Siins  of  the  Times,  245. 


90  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Carlyle's  starting-point,  then,  for  the  solution  of 
the  complex  problems  of  society  is  characteristically 
direct  and  simple.  "All  Reform  except  a  moral  one 
will  prove  unavailing.  .  .  .  To  reform  a  world,  to 
reform  a  nation,  no  wise  man  will  undertake;  and  all 
but  foolish  men  know  that  the  only  solid,  though  a 
far  slower,  reformation,  is  what  each  begins  and  per- 
fects on  himself.  .  .  .  We  demand  arrestment  of  the 
knaves  and  dastards,  and  begin  by  arresting  our  own 
poor  selves  out  of  that  fraternity.  There  is  no  other 
reform  conceivable.  Thou  and  I,  my  friend,  can,  in 
the  most  flunky  world,  make,  each  of  us,  one  non- 
flunky,  one  hero,  if  we  like:  that  will  be  two  heroes  to 
begin  with."  ^  An  ancient  and  familiar  remedy  for 
the  diseases  of  a  modern  age!  But  Carlyle  found  no 
other  and  needed  no  other.  Statistics,  laws,  organi- 
zations, mountains  of  red  tape,  were  as  nothing  if 
the  individual  were  not  transformed  from  the  heart 
(  outward.  "It  is  the  heart  always  that  sees,"  he  said, 
j  "  before  the  head  can  see."  ^  He  had  measureless  con- 
V  fidence  in  the  moral  instincts  which  he  believed  to  be 
potential  if  not  active  in  every  healthy  nature,  and 
he  sought  to  arouse  these  instincts  in  man  and  to 
inspire  him  to  act  upon  them.  The  world,  he  thought, 
needed  nothing  so  much  as  good  men,  mystic  creative 
centers  of  virtue;  each  of  whom  should  play  his  part 
in  the  social  drama,  and  so  help  to  bring  it  nearer  to 
perfection. 

It  is  important  to  note,  however,  that  there  was 
nothing  parochial  in  Carlyle's  conception  of  moral- 

'  Corn-Law  Rhymes,  20$;  Signs  of  the  Times,  252;  Past  and  Present,  31. 
'Chartism,  135. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  91 

ity.  To  him  man's  moral  life  was  the  source  alike  of 
man's  proper  relations  with  the  world  and  with  God. 
When  he  said  that  "all  talent,  all  intellect  (was)  in 
the  first  place  moral,"  and  that  "a  thoroughly  im- 
moral man  could  not  know  anything  at  all,"  he 
meant  that  the  condition  of  getting  knowledge,  as  of 
all  genuinely  fruitful  activity,  was  a  right  desire  to 
know.  ^  The  mind  must  reach  out  towards  truth 
positively,  co-operatively,  so  to  speak, — and  this 
mental  attitude  is  moral.  "To  know  a  thing,"  he 
said,  "what  we  can  call  knowing,  a  man  must  first  1 
love  the  thing,  sympathize  with  it;  that  is,  be  virtu-  \ 
ously  related  to  it.  If  he  have  not  the  justice  to  put  ) 
down  his  own  selfishness  at  every  turn,  how  shall  he 
know?  His  virtues,  all  of  them,  will  lie  recorded  in 
his  knowledge.  Nature,  with  her  truth,  remains  to 
the  bad,  to  the  selfish  and  the  pusillanimous  forever 
a  sealed  book."  ^  In  thus  making  man's  insight, 
intellectual  as  well  as  moral,  depend  upon  a  right 
state  of  the  heart,  Carlyle  was  at  one  with  Ruskin, 
who  compressed  the  whole  doctrine  into  a  single 
golden  sentence:  " T he_entire_object  of^true  edjjcation 
is  to  make  people  notjiier^JjL^iJie_dglvt.things,  but 
~enjoy  the  righrThmgs:  not  merely  industrious,  but 
to~Tov5~-m4u&t4:y — mrr'merely  learned,  but  to  love 
knowledge — not  merely  pure,  but  to  love  purity — 
not  merely  just,  but  to  hunger  and  thirst  after 
justice."  ^ 

Morality  is  thus  the  basis  of  man's  social  relations. 

*  Chartism,  135;  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  99. 
''■  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  99.  Cf.  ibid.,  41 
»  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive,  Works,  XVIII,  435. 


92  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

It  is  likewise  the  basis  of  his  rehgion.  Immediate 
contact  with  God  through  the  conscience, — this  was 
the  deepest  fact  that  Carlyle  professed  to  know  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  man.  As  a  transcendentahst 
he  habitually  interpreted  the  outer  world,  the  Not- 
Me,  as  phenomenal  only,  a  daily  manifestation  of  the 
spiritual  in  the  material  and  common.  But  revela- 
tion of  the  Over-Soul  through  nature,  however  mi- 
raculous, was  secondary  and  mediate;  revelation 
through  the  conscience  was  primary  and  immediate. 
,  "He  who  traces  nothing  of  God  in  his  own  soul,  will 
never  find  God  in  the  world  of  matter — mere  circlings 
o( force  there,  of  iron  regulation,  of  universal  death 
j  and  merciless  indifferency."  ^  The  true  Shekinah  is 
I  man.  He  is  the  oracle  of  the  unseen.  Upon  his  heart 
are  written  the  laws  of  the  Eternal  more  legibly  than 
upon  stones,  or  even  upon  creeds  and  sacred  books. 
"Except  thy  own  eye  have  got  to  see  it,  except  thy 
own  soul  have  victoriously  struggled  to  clear  vision 
and  belief  of  it,  what  is  the  thing  seen  and  the  thing 
believed  by  another  or  by  never  so  many  others?" 
Carlyle  was  thus  strictly  Hebraic.  He  believed  that 
the  secret  of  the  Lord  was  with  them  that  feared  Him 
and  that  only  the  upright  should  behold  His  face. 
God  did  not  manifest  himself  in  images  and  rituals, 
but  in  the  "I  ought"  of  each  soul,  a  mystic  impulse, 
voiceless,  formless,  but  "certain  as  Life,  certain  as 
Death.  .  .  .  Such  knowledge,  the  crown  of  his 
whole  spiritual  being,  the  life  of  his  life,  let  him  keep 
and  sacredly  walk  by.  He  has  a  religion."  ^ 
The  reformation  of  the  individual  was  thus  to  be 

*  Froude,  Life,  IV,  3  29.  *  Past  and  Present,  197. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  93 

achieved  through  his  obedience  to  the  first  intima- 
tions of  duty;  for  only  so  could  man  get  his  initial 
push  in  the  right  direction.  "  'Do  the  Duty  which  lies 
nearest  thee^  which  thou  knowest  to  be  a  Duty!  Thy 
second  Duty  will  already  have  become  clearer.  .  .  . 
This  day  thou  knowest  ten  commanded  duties,  seest 
in  thy  mind  ten  things  which  should  be  done,  for  one 
that  thou  doest!  Do  one  of  them;  this  of  itself  will 
show  thee  ten  others  which  can  and  shall  be  done."  ^ 
Self-realization,  which  is  the  aim  of  life,  depends 
therefore  upon  action,  upon  work,  and  the  call  to 
duty  becomes  a  gospel  of  labor,  the  corner-stone  of 
Carlyle's   social   philosophy. 

It  is  the  worker  who  possesses  the  secret  of  life.  | 
Work  is  the  one  sure  means  of  escape  from  unhappi- 
ness,  from  unbelief  in  self,  from  endless  labyrinths  of 
speculation.    It  is  the  pathway  to  a  true  knowledge 
of  self,  of  the  world,  and  of  the  eternal  verities.    From 
work  done  in  obedience  to  duty  springs  faith,  the 
faith  that  naturally  grows  up  in  a  spirit  that  has 
lived  both  much  and  wisely.    Through  his  work  man 
advances  step  by  step  upon  the  kingdoms  of  darkness  / 
within  and  without,  and  creates  good  from  evil,  order/ 
from  disorder.    Each  worker  in  his  degree  is  a  poeti 
discovering  the  ideal  in  the  actual,  and  like  the  poet 
bodying  forth  the  forms  of  things  unseen  and  out  o(f 
the  flux  fashioning  th*fe  one  thing  that  matters,  a  life,  a^ 
bitof  art,  or  a  task  faithfully  done. 2  And  so  theworker\ 

•  ^Sartor  Resartus,  135;  Past  and  Present,  199. 

*  Many  of  Carlyle's  best  and  most  characteristic  sayings  are  on  work, 

as  for  examples:     "He  that  has  done  nothing  has  known  nothing.  .  .   . 

The  authentic  insight  and  experience  of  any  human  being,  were  it  but 

insight  and  experience  in  hewing  of  wood  and  drawing  of  water,  is  real 


94  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

becomes  a  hero;  for  does  not  his  toil,  whether  it  be 
the  toil  of  artist  or  of  humblest  craftsman,  task  all  the 
capacity,  all  the  loyalty,  all  the  courage  of  his  nature? 
He  is  therefore  the  indispensable  beginning  in  the 
grand  work  of  social  reform,  since  through  reform  of 
self  he  has  become  qualified  to  discern  worth  and 
leadership  in  his  fellow  men.  He  has  acquired  an  eye 
for  talent;  and  he  who  sees  talent  must  of  necessity 
i  '-everence  it.  He  who  is  himself  heroic  may  be  trusted 
to  choose  heroes  to  govern  him.  Carlyle  had  no  fear 
of  a  world  made  up  of  workers.  In  their  hands 
ballots,  elections,  parliaments,  "bills  and  methods," 
all  the  machinery  of  government,  against  which 
(when  he  thought  of  twenty  millions,  mostly  fools  and 
idlers)  he  raged  so  vehemently,  were  safe.  "Given 
the  men  a  People  choose,  the  People  itself,  in  Its 
exact  worth  and  worthlessness,  is  given.  A  heroic 
people  chooses  heroes,  and  is  happy;  a  valet  or  flunky 
people  chooses  sham-heroes,  what  are  called  quacks, 
thinking  them  heroes,  and  is  not  happy.    The  grand 

knowledge,  a  real  possession  and  acquirement,  how  small  soever.  .  .  . 
It  is  more  honorable  to  have  built  a  dog-hutch  than  to  have  dreamed 
of  building  a  palace.  .  .  .  Doubt  as  we  will,  man  is  actually  Here;  not 
to  ask  questions,  but  to  work.  .  .  .  Between  vague  wavering  Capability 
and  fixed  indubitable  Performance,  what  a  difference!  ....  Our  Works 
are  the  mirror  wherein  the  spirit  first  sees  its  natural  lineaments.  .  .  . 
Work,  never  so  Mammonish,  mean,  is  in  communication  with  Nature; 
the  real  desire  to  get  Work  done  will  itself  lead  one  more  and  more  to 
truth,  to  Nature's  appointments  and  regulations,  which  are  truth.  .  .  . 
A  small  Poet  every  worker  is.  .  .  .  Whatso  we  have  done,  is  done,  and 
for  us  annihilated,  and  ever  must  we  go  and  do  anew.  .  .  .  Not  what 
I  Have,  but  what  I  Do  is  my  Kingdom.  .  .  .  No  faithful  workman 
finds  his  task  a  pastime.  .  .  .  All  work  of  man  is  as  the  swimmers:  a 
waste  ocean  threatens  to  devour  him;  if  he  front  it  not  bravely,  it  will 
keep  its  word.  ...  Ye  know  at  least  this,  That  the  mandate  of  God  to 
His  creature  man  is:  Work!" 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  95 

summary  of  a  man's  spiritual  condition,  what  brings 
out  all  his  herohood  and  insight,  or  all  his  flunkyhood 
and  horn-eyed  dimness,  is  this  question  put  to  him, 
What  man  dost  thou  honour?  Which  is  thy  ideal  of  a 
man;  or  nearest  that?  So  too  of  a  People:  for  a 
People  too,  every  People,  speaks  its  choice, — were  it 
only  by  silently  obeying,  and  not  revolting, — in  the 
course  of  a  century  or  so.  Nor  are  electoral  methods, 
Reform  Bills  and  such  like,  unimportant."  *  Once  we 
are  a  nation  of  workers,  he  declared,  "By  Reform 
Bills,  Anti  Corn-Law  Bills,  and  thousand  other  bills 
and  methods,  we  will  demand  of  our  Governors,  with 
emphasis,  and  for  the  first  time  not  without  effect, 
that  they  cease  to  be  quacks,  or  else  depart;  that  they 
set  no  quackeries  and  blockheadisms  anywhere  to 
rule  over  us,  that  they  utter  or  act  no  cant  to  us, — it 
will  be  better  if  they  do  not.  For  we  shall  now  know 
quacks  when  we  see  them;  cant,  when  we  hear  it, 
shall  be  horrible  to  us!"  ^ 

The  workers,  then,  shall  choose  the  leaders,  who 
are  to  govern.  An  aristocracy  of  talent  selected  by 
hero-worshipers,  a  government  of  the  wisest  and 
best  set  up  by  a  people  with  reverence  for  the  wisest 
and  best,  this  was  Carlyle's  second  step  in  social 
reconstruction.  "Find  in  any  country  the  Ablest 
Man  that  exists  there;  raise  him  to  the  supreme  place, 
and  loyally  reverence  him:  you  have  a  perfect  govern- 
ment for  that  country."  '  Here,  therefore,  we  have 
the  Carlylean  gospel  of  the  hero,  a  gospel  no  less 
famous  than  the  gospel  of  work  and  integrating  with 

1  Past  and  Present,  66.  *  Ibid.,  30. 

*  Heroes  and  Hero-fForship,  182. 


96  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

it  to  make  a  complete  program  for  the  regeneration 
of  the  social  order.  The  one  meaning  for  Carlyle,  it 
will  be  remembered,  in  the  popular  disturbances  of 
the  time,  which  was  of  real  significance  for  the  future, 
was  the  effort  to  throw  off  sham  leaders  and  to  find 
real  ones.  Given  now  a  society  of  workers  as  the 
basis  of  the  new  order,  what  manner  of  man  should 
they  choose  for  their  governor?  Who  were  the 
aristoi  and  where  might  they  be  found?  A  govern- 
ment of  the  best,  could  it  be  established,  were  beyond 
doubt  "the  one  healing  remedy"  for  an  epoch  grown 
sick  and  distracted. 

Carlyle  wrote  so  much  and  with  so  much  rep- 
etition concerning  his  ideal  leader  that  there  ought 
to  have  been  no  confusion  of  mind  as  to  what  he 
(\  meant.     By   calling   his   heroes  aristoiy  or   best,  he 
!  meant  that  they  were  to  realize  in  the  highest  degree 
;  possible  all  the  virtues  that  made  a  man  in  the  truest 
sense  human.    The  ideal  hero  is  a  zood  man.    He  is 
a  wbfker,  like  those  whom  he  represents  or  leads.    He 
is  the  bravest,  jus^s^ noblest  of  his  kind.     Most  of 
all  he  is  a  man  of  imellect,  who  by  reason  of  his  recti- 
tude and  his  loyalty  to  the  laws  of  life  has  been 
A  "initiated  into  discernment  of  the  same."  ^    Carlyle's 
I  hero  is  therefore  one  "who  lives  in  the  inward  sphere 
of  things,  in  the  True,  Divine  and  Eternal,  which 
;  exists  always,  unseen  to  most,  under  the  Temporary 
i  and  Trivial. "2    He  is  one  of  those  who  in  the  words  of 
Arnold,  "have  conquered  fate",  and 

\  "Through  clouds  of  individual  strife 
\    Draw  homeward  to  the  general  life." 

^Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  91.  ^Heroes  and  Ilero-JVorship,  144. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  97 

The  lineaments  of  this  heroic  man  are  brought  out 
with  clearer  precision  in  Heroes  and  Hero-lVorship    . 
than  elsewhere:  he  is,  first,  a  man  of  smcerity,  "the    ] 
first  characteristic  of  all  men  in  any  way  heroic,"  and 
the  basis  of  whatever  originalitujriay  lie  in  him;  he  is, 
second,  a  man  with  the  "seein^eye,"  or  the  poetic 
gift  of  vision  which  "looks    throu£h_the  shows  of 
things  into  things," — he  cannot  be  duped  nor  misled 
by  the  false. or  the  superficial;  finally,  he  is  a  creative  I 
force,  a  source  of  order; — "his  mission  is  order.  .  .  .  tf  / 
He  is  here  to  make  what  was  disorderly,  chaotic,  into 
a  thing  ruled,  regular;" — he  is  a  maker,  not  a    de- 
stroyer, and  he  comes  like  Goethe  with  a  hammer  to 
build,  not  like  Voltaire  with  a  torch  to  burn.    He  is, 
in  truth,  a  servant  of  the  people  no  less  than  their 
leader.^  ^ 

But  the  Carlylean  hero  is  also  a  man  of  power! 
Here  we  run  upon  the  great  rock  of  offense.  For  our 
leader  turns  out  to  be,  say  the  critics,  a  Nietzschean 
superman,  a  Hohenzollern  drill-sergeant,  a  vulgar 
strong  Hercules  or  brawny  Titan,  anything  but  a 
wise  and  humane  leader!  It  is  true  that  as  Carlyle 
grew  older  and  saw  no  ebb  in  the  rising  tide  of  de- 
mocracy, he  likewise  grew  increasingly  gloomy  and 
impatient  over  the  course  of  events.  And  he  some- 
times expressed  himself  in  a  manner  that  unfortu- 
nately gave  justification  to  the  protests  of  his  critics, 
who  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  wise  teaching  of 
the  prophet  (and  the  exaggerated  humor  of  the 
talker!)  and  to  remember  more  than  all  else  the 
splenetic  ejaculations  of  a  wearied  and  saddened  old 

Past  and  Present,  222. 


// 


98  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

man.  In  these  later  years,  especially,  Carlyle  dis- 
\  played  a  readiness  to  praise  the  man  who  in  a  dis- 
tracted time  could  get  things  done,  like  Frederick  the 
j  Great,  or  like  Bismarck,  whether  the  methods  he  used 
were  always  the  most  proper  or  not.  But  it  is  to  be 
remembered  in  the  first  place  that  he  never  claimed 
perfection  for  any  of  his  historical  heroes,  whose 
strength  suffered,  he  thought,  by  just  in  so  much  as 
it  was  an  ignoble  strength.  "Napoleon,"  he  said, 
"does  by  no  means  seem  to  me  so  great  a  man  as 
Cromwell.  .  .  .  An  element  of  blamable  ambition 
shows  itself,  from  the  first,  in  this  man;  gets  the 
victory  over  him  at  last,  and  involves  him  and  his 
work  in  ruin."  ^  It  is  well  known  that  Frederick  the 
Great  was  not  one  of  his  genuine  heroes,  much  as  he 
admired  many  aspects  of  his  genius.  "That  terrible 
practical  Doer  with  the  cutting  brilliances  of  mind 
and  character,  and  the  irrefragable  common-sense," 
as  Carlyle  called  the  King,  was  "to  the  last  a  ques- 
tionable hero"  with  "nothing  of  a  Luther,  of  a 
Cromwell"  in  him. 

I  In  the  second  place  Carlyle  from  first  to  last  main- 
tained that  the  only  might  that  could  endure  must  be 
founded  upon  justice.  Any  power  resting  upon  brute 
force,  upon  mere  will  to  power,  could  not  last,  how- 
ever victorious  it  might  be  for  the  time.  He  was 
never  an  apostle  of  the  horrible  doctrine  that  domin- 
ion belonged  to  the  man  or  the  people  who  could 
conquer  and  rule  by  force  of  arms  alone.  The  Carly- 
ean  hero  must  indeed  be  brave,  for  how  else  could  he 
grow  wise  or  his  wisdom  become  effectual?    "Your 

^Heroes  and  Ilero-Worship,  218-219. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  99 

Luther,  your  Knox,  your  Anselm,  Becket,  Abbot/ 
Samson,  Samuel  Johnson,  if  they  had  not  been  bravef 
enough,  by  what  possibility  could  they  ever  hava 
been  wise?"  ^  And  just  as  the  strength  increases  ana 
makes  operative  the  wisdom,  so  the  wisdom  directs 
the  strength;  the  two  virtues  are  complementary  and 
inseparable  in  the  heroic  character.  "The  strong 
man,  what  is  he  if  we  will  consider?  The  wise  man; 
the  man  with  the  gift  of  method,  of  faithfulness  and 
valour,  all  of  which  are  the  basis  of  wisdom;  who  has 
insight  into  what  is  what,  into  what  will  follow  out  of 
what,  the  eye  to  see  and  the  hand  to  do;  who  \sjit  to 
administer,  to  direct,  and  guidingly  command:  he  is 
the  strong  man.  His  muscles  and  bones  are  no 
stronger  than  ours;  but  his  soul  is  stronger,  his  soul  is 
wiser,  clearer, — is  better  and  nobler,  for  that  is,  has 
been  and  ever  will  be  the  root  of  all  clearness  worthy 
of  such  a  name."  ^  The  victories  of  such  a  hero  are 
not  the  victories  of  mere  force:  "Of  conquest  we  may 
say  that  it  never  yet  went  by  brute  force  and  compul-  \ 
sion;  conquest  of  that  kind  does  not  endure.  Con- 
quest, along  with  power  of  compulsion,  an  essential 
universally  in  human  society,  must  bring  benefit 
along  with  it,  or  men,  of  the  ordinary  strength  of  men, 
will  fling  it  out."  ^  To  the  end  of  his  days  Carlyle 
adhered  to  this  belief  in  the  divine  strength  of  right. 
He  never  gave  assent  to  the  doctrine  (as  the  historian 
Lecky  described  it)  of  the  divine  right  of  strength. 
"With  respect  to  that  poor  heresy  of  might  being  the 
symbol  of  right,"  said  he  to  Froude  in  1873,  "I  shall 
have  to  tell  Lecky  one  day  that  quite  the  converse  or 

^  Past  and  Present,  20%.  '^Chartism,  135.  ^  Ibid.,  135. 


loo  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

re-verse  is  (my)  real  opinion — namely,  that  right  is 
the  eternal  symbol  of  might;  .  .  .  and  that,  in  fact, 
he  probably  never  met  with  a  son  of  Adam  more 
contemptuous  of  might  except  where  it  rests  on  the 
above  origin."  ^ 

It  was  of  course  easier  for  Carlyle  to  describe  his 
able  man,  or  hero,  than  to  tell  the  British  public  how 
to  find  him, — a  problem,  he  shrewdly  declared,  which 
belonged  to  the  British  public.  The  philistine  mind 
has  been  much  amused  by  the  solemn  declaration 

I  that  the  real  superior  is  chosen  by  "divine  right:  he 
who  is  to  be  my  Ruler,  whose  will  is  to  be  higher  than 
my  will,  was  chosen  for  me  in  Heaven. "^  Carlyle, 
it  hardly  needs  to  be  said,  was  never  an  advocate  of 

^  the  historical  doctrine  of  divine  right  of  kings.  The 
doctrine  of  hereditary  privilege  did  not  weigh  heavily 
in  the  social  philosophy  of  Diogenes  Teufelsdrockh! 
What  he  meant  in  the  passage  just  quoted  and  what 
he  meant  in  numerous  similar  statements  was  that 
the  truly  able  man,  or  leader,  is  the  gifted  man,  who, 
living  in  the  inward  sphere  of  things,  takes  counsel  of 
the  Unseen  and  Silent  and  thus  inevitably  becomes 

^  Froude,  Lije  of  Carlyle,  IV,  360.  Numerous  other  passages  to  the 
same  effect  are  to  be  found  in  Carlyle's  books:  e.  g. —  "Await  the  issue. 
In  all  battles,  if  you  await  the  issue,  each  fighter  has  prospered  according 
to  his  right.  His  right  and  his  might,  at  the  close  of  the  account,  were 
one  and  the  same.  He  has  fought  with  all  his  might,  and  in  exact  pro- 
portion to  all  his  right  he  has  prevailed.  His  very  death  is  no  victory 
over  him.  He  died  indeed;  but  his  work  lives."  (^Past  and  Present,  10.) 
"What  Napoleon  did  ■wxW  in  the  long-run  amount  to  what  he  did  justly. 
.  .  .  The  Ablest  Man;  he  means  also  the  truest-hearted,  justest,  the 
Noblest  Man:  what  he  tells  us  to  do  must  be  precisely  the  wisest,  fittest, 
that  we  could  anywhere  or  anyhow  learn."  (Heroes  and  Hero- Worship, 
182,  222.)    Cf.  also  Chartism,  134-5,  ^S^J  Past  and  Present,  164. 

*  Sartor  Resartus,  225. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OFLAJ^OR         Ibi 

a  spokesman  of  the  Eternal  Order.  Now  it  was 
simply  a  vital  element  in  Carlyle's  faith  in  God  and 
man  that  given  a  world  in  which  men  of  superior 
capacity  are  born,  and  given  a  society  in  which  the 
workers  are  a  majority,  the  workers  will  perforce 
reverence  and  follow  the  leaders.  It  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  that  this  should  be  so;  "  for  the  great  soul  of 
the  world  is  just,"  and  the  workers  must  attach  them- 
selves to  those  who  represent  divine  justice,  namely, 
the  men  of  superior  brains  and  superior  virtues,  the 
heroes.^  "Like  people,  like  King"  was  thus  an 
integral  part  of  Carlyle's  political  creed,  as  we  have 
seen.  He  feared  democracy,  he  feared  the  ballot,  he 
feared  the  widespread  hue  and  cry  for  reform,  only 
because  he  feared  (had  not  the  French  Revolution 
taught  him  to  fear?),  far  more,  political  power  in  the 
hands  of  a  foolish,  idle,  intemperate,  maddened, 
multitude; — a  consummation  quite  the  most  catas- 
trophic that  he  could  conceive  of,  carrying  with  it  the 
overthrow  of  every  social  principle  and  every  accom- 
plished fact  of  civilization.  He  condemned  many  > 
philanthropic  schemes  for  reform  only  because  he  wa;;  / 
afraid  that  they  would  end  by  providing  food  and\ 
clothing  and  shelter  for  rascals  and  loafers.  Bur- 
political  power  in  the  hands  of  the  workers  he  did  noi 
fear.  Let  these  be  left,  he  said,  to  choose  their  leader^^ 
by  such  machinery  as  would  prove  effectual, — the 
sole  justification  of  political  ways  and  means  in  any  i 
case.  "To  sift  and  riddle  the  Nation,  so  that  you 
might  extricate  and  sift-out  the  true  ten  gold  grains, 
or  ablest  men,  and  of  these  make  your  Governors  c»r 

'  Past  and  Present,  7,  164.  1 


I02  Cy^RLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Public  Officers;  leaving  the  dross  and  common  sandy 
or  silty  material  safely  aside,  as  the  thing  to  be  gov- 
erned, not  to  govern;  certainly  all  ballot-boxes,  cau- 
cuses, Kensington-Common  meetings.  Parliamen- 
tary debatings,  Red  Republics,  Russian  Despotisms, 
and  constitutional  and  unconstitutional  methods 
of  society  among  mankind,  are  intended  to  achieve 
this  one  end.  .  .  .  The  finding  of  your  Ableman  and 
getting  him  invested  with  the  symbols  of  ability,  with 
dignity,  worship  {worths hip) ,  royalty,  Knighthood, 
or  whatever  we  call  it,  so  that  he  may  actually  have 
room  to  guide  according  to  his  faculty  of  doing  it, — is 
the  business,  well  or  ill  accomplished,  of  all  social 
procedure  whatsoever  in  this  world!  Hustings- 
speeches,  Parliamentary  Motions,  Reform  Bills, 
French  Revolutions,  all  mean  at  heart  this;  or  else 
nothing."  ^ 

Out  of  a  state  composed  of  leaders  and  workers 

^Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  92;  Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  181.  Carlyle 
nowhere  advocates  the  aboHtion  of  constitutional  government.  In  fact 
he  everywhere  implies  the  existence  of  such  a  government  as  the  founda- 
tion for  all  the  reforms  he  proposes:  cf.  Chartism,  164,  also,  The  English 
in  Past  and  Preserit,  Book  III,  ch.  5.  He  believed,  however,  that  in 
the  field  of  political,  as  opposed  to  industrial,  reform,  what  was  needed 
was  reform  in  administration  rather  than  in  parliament;  efficient  exec- 
utives were  needed  rather  than  extension  of  the  franchise.  He  proposed 
that  the  Crown  should  have  power  to  elect  "a  few"  members  .to  Parlia- 
ment, who,  as  Secretaries  under  the  Prime  Minister,  should  increase  the 
efficiency  of  administration.  Chosen  solely  because  of  their  ability  for 
special  duties,  these  officers  (minister  of  works,  minister  of  justice,  minis- 
ter of  education,  etc.)  ought  immensely  to  improve  and  extend  the  serv- 
ices of  the  state.  In  this  plan  Carlyle  saw  no  "risk  or  possibility  "  of 
a  bureaucracy.  And  why.?  Because  of  English  democracy!  "Demo- 
cracy is  hot  enough  here,  fierce  enough;  it  is  perennial,  universal,  clearly 
invincible  among  us  henceforth.  No  danger  it  should  let  itself  be  flung 
in  chains  by  sham-secretaries  of  the  Pedant  species,  and  accept  their 
vile  Age  of  Pinchbeck  for  its  Golden  Age!"    {Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  121.) 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR         103 

must  come  the  new  chivalry  of  labor.  Carlyle  called 
it  a  "chivalry"  of  labor,  because  he  found  in  the  old 
medieval  social  order  a  spirit  which  he  wished  to  see 
revived  in  the  new.  The  feudal  past  could  teach  the 
industrial  present!  The  eleventh  and  twelfth  cen- 
turies, the  centuries  of  William  the  Conqueror,  of 
Henry  II,  of  Abbot  Samson,  were  rough  and  rugged, 
and  the  methods  of  getting  things  done  were  not  the 
smoothest.  But  Carlyle  could  never  enough  praise 
the  bold  vigor  of  the  knights  and  the  austere  piety 
of  the  saints,  whose  leadership  founded  the  order,  the 
art,  and  the  religion  of  the  wonderful  thirteenth 
century.  The  feudal  workers  did  not  live  apart  from 
their  masters  in  isolation,  dependent  upon  them  for 
nothing  but  payment  of  wages.  Gurth  was  thrall  to 
Cedric,  but  for  that  very  reason  he  was  not  left  to 
starve  in  a  workhouse  or  die  of  typhus-fever,  under  a 
system  of  laissez-faire.  Rude  and  harsh  as  things 
were,  there  was  yet  fealty  of  man  to  man,  up  and 
down  the  feudal  scale;  baron  protected  dependent 
and  dependent  fought  for  baron.  It  was  the  age  of 
the  soldier,  the  fighting  man, — immemorial  type  of 
training,  obedience,  order,  and  loyalty  to  superiors, 
without  which  a  new  chivalry  of  labor  would  be  im- 
possible. The  true  worker  for  Carlyle  must  ever  be 
a  fighter  like  one  of  the  Conqueror's  warriors.  "  Man ' 
is  created  to  fight,"  said  he;  "he  is  perhaps  best  of  all 
definable  as  a  born  soldier;  his  life  'a  battle  and  a 
march'  under  the  right  general."  ^  Looking  at  the 
statuesque  lifeguardsmen  who  rode  sentry  at  the 
Horse-guards,  he  was  mournfully  reminded  of  what 

*  Past  and  Present,  163. 


104  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

at  the  moment  seemed  a  sole  surviving  link  between 
the  past  and  the  present.  Out  of  gray  antiquity  the 
establishment  of  soldiery  had  come  down  to  the 
society  of  to-day  as  the  obvious  symbol  of  the  power 
of  organization  and  the  equally  obvious  proof  of  the 
changes  that  could  be  wrought  in  human  nature. 
What  promise  was  there  in  this  venerable  institution 
for  a  new  industrial  order,  a  new  chivalry  of  labor! 
"These  thousand  straight-standing,  firmest  individ- 
uals, who  shoulder  arms,  who  march,  wheel,  advance, 
retreat;  and  are,  for  your  behoof,  a  magazine  charged 
with  fiery  death,  in  the  most  perfect  condition  of 
potential  activity:  few  months  ago,  till  the  persuasive 
sergeant  came,  what  were  they?  Multiform  ragged 
losels,  runaway  apprentices,  starved  weavers,  thiev- 
ish valets;  an  entirely  broken  population,  fast  tending 
towards  the  treadmill.  But  the  persuasive  sergeant 
came;  by  tap  of  drum  enlisted,  or  found  lists  of  them, 
took  heartily  to  drilling  them; — and  he  and  you  have 
made  them  this!  Most  potent,  effectual  for  all  work 
1  whatsoever,  is  wise  planning,  firm  combining  and 
i commanding  among  men."  ^ 

But  the  drill  sergeant  as  a  professional  man-killer 
was  not  Carlyle's  hero,  despite  the  sneers  of  critics, 

(old  and  new.  He  abhorred  war.  "Under  the  sky," 
he  declared,  "is  no  uglier  spectacle  than  two  men 
with  clenched  teeth,  and  hell-fire  eyes,  hacking  one 
another's  flesh;  converting  precious  living  bodies, 
and  priceless  living  souls,  into  nameless  mass  of 
putrescence,  useful  only  for  turnip-manure.  How 
did  a  Chivalry  ever  come  out  of  that;  how  anything 
•  Past  and  Present,  225. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  105 

that  was  not  hideous,  scandalous,  infernaL''"  '  What  j 
Carlyle  of  course  wished  to  see  was  the  spirit  of  the 
fighting  soldier,  his  courage,  obedience,  and  loyalty, 
re-created  in  the  worker  of  the  new  era,  engaged  in 
the  warfare  of  modern  industry.  "It  is  forever  \ 
indispensable  for  a  man  to  fight:  now  with  Necessity, 
with  Barrenness,  Scarcity,  with  Puddles,  Bogs, 
tangled  Forests,  unkempt  Cotton; — now  with  the 
hallucinations  of  his  poor  fellow  Men.  ...  O 
Heavens,  if  we  saw  an  army  ninety-thousand  strong, 
maintained  and  fully  equipt,  in  continual  real  action 
and  battle  against  Human  Starvation,  against  Chaos, 
Necessity,  Stupidity,  and  our  real  'natural  enemies,' 
what  a  business  it  were!  Fighting  and  molesting  not 
'the  French,'  who,  poor  men,  have  a  hard  enough 
battle  of  their  own  in  the  like  kind,  and  need  noi 
additional  molesting  from  us;  but  fighting  and  in- 
cessantly spearing  down  and  destroying  Falsehood, 
Nescience,  Delusion,  Disorder,  and  the  Devil  and  his 
Angels! "2  Nor  was  it  the  spirit  of  the  feudal  fighter 
alone  that  Carlyle  would  revive  in  the  new  age.  It 
was  the  respect  for  su_periorities,  for  old  loyalties  and 
pieties,  and  (not  the  least!)  for  the  graces  and  courte- 
sies, the  easy  dignities  and  "kingly  simplicities,"  that 
characterized  lord  and  lady  in  the  best  times  of  the 
ancestral   chivalry. 

How  to  awaken  and  preserve  these  values  in  human 
nature  "in  conjunction  with  inevitable  democracy" 
in  an  industrial  era  was,  he  knew,  "a  work  for  long 

*  Past  and  Present,  163.    The  reader  will  in  this  connection  recall  the 
famous  satire  on  war  in  Sartor. 
2  Ibid,  164,  225. 


io6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

years  and  centuries."  For  the  old  order  must  yield 
'to  the  new!  The  modern  epic  must  be  the  epic  of 
Tools  and  The  Man  instead  of  Arms  and  The  Man. 
An  age  of  fighting  must  give  place  to  an  age  of  work- 
ing,— with  "Captains  of  Industry"  for  leaders,  in- 
stead of  *  'Captains  of  Chivalry."  The  blind  Plugson 
of  Undershot,  modern  capitalist  cotton  manufacturer, 
who,  like  the  medieval  king,  had  hitherto  been  a 
leader,  but  also,  like  the  medieval  pirate,  a  plunderer, 
must  be  transformed  into  a  fighting  Chevalier,  with 
the  nobleness  of  the  feudal  baron  and  the  bravery  of 
the  old-time  bucanneer.  So  transformed,  captains  of 
industry  were  to  become  in  the  future  "the  true 
Fighters,  henceforth  recognisable  as  the  only  true 
ones:  Fighters  against  Chaos,  Necessity  and  the 
Devils  and  Yotuns;  and  (would)  lead  on  Mankind 

(  in  that  great,  and  alone  true,  and  universal  warfare. 

I  .  .  .  Let  the  Captains  of  Industry  retire  into  their 
own  hearts,  and  ask  solemnly,  If  there  is  nothing  but 

I  vulturous  hunger  for  fine  wines,  valet  reputation  and 
gilt  carriages,  discoverable  there?"  ^  The  old  slavery, 
too,  must  give  place  to  a  new  freedom  or  rather  to  a 
new  feudalism  of  the  voluntary  kind.  No  man  is  to 
be  thrall  to  another:  "Gurth  could  only  tend  pigs; 
this  one  will  build  cities,  conquer  waste  worlds."  ^ 
Freely  will  he  subject  himself  to  the  guidance,  nay, 
even  to  the  authority,  of  his  master,  to  whom  he  will 
be  attached  by  bonds  quite  other  than  the  bonds  of 
servitude.  He  will  be  bound-  by  the  strong  force  of 
good-will  and  justice,  the  only  powers  that  can  keep 
men  long  together.     Social  progress  in  other  words, 

1  Past  and  Present,  233.  '^  Ibid.,  21^. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  107 

could  not  be  effected,  Carlyle  held,  unless  men,  lead- 
ers and  workers  alike,  could  be  gradually  transformed 
into  a  fuller  and  richer  humanity. 

The  organization  of  the  modern  industrial  world 
into  the  new  chivalry  of  labor  was  the  supreme  task  of 
the  future.'  In  this  task  the  state  must  lead.  It  must 
break  up  the  regime  o{ laissez-faire  and  must  interfere 
between  masters  and  men.  It  must  organize  industry 
and  compel  obedience  to  the  principle  of  equal  justice 
and  equal  opportunity  for  all.  And  in  order  to 
accomplish  these  ends,  the  state  must  guide  and 
control  human  activity  in  ways  yet  scarcely  dreamed 
of.-  This  was  a  work,  as  Carlyle  well  knew,  that 
would  require  years,  and  perhaps  even  centuries.  He 
harbored  no  dream  of  instantaneous  social  transfor- 
mations, for  he  understood  too  clearly  the  nature  of 
man  and  the  magnitude  of  man's  problems.^  The 
ideals  of  social  justice  in  their  broad  aspects  might  be 
easy  to  state  and  to  defend,  but  the  realization  of 
these  ideals  throughout  the  complex  structure  of 
modern  society  was  an  enterprise  of  stupendous 
dimensions,  infinitely  too  difficult  to  be  undertaken  or 
even  imagined  all  at  once.     What  Carlyle  did  urge 

*  Carlyle  was  alive  to  the  difficulty  of  his  position  in  making  sugges- 
tions, and  was  not  without  hesitation  in  offering  them.  "Editors  are  not 
here,  foremost  of  all,  to  say  How.  .  .  .  An  Editor's  stipulated  work  is  to 
apprise  thee  that  it  must  be  done.  .  .  .  All  speech  of  positive  enactments 
were  hazardous  in  those  who  know  this  business  only  by  the  eye.  .  .  '. 
Of  Time-Bill,  Factory-Bill  and  other  such  Bills  the  present  Editor  has 
no  authority  to  speak.  He  knows  not,  it  is  for  others  than  he  to  know, 
in  what  specific  ways  it  may  be  feasible  to  interfere,  with  Legislation, 
between  the  Workers  and  the  Master-Workers."  {Past  and  Present, 
226,  231,  237.) 

*  Past  and  Present,  221,  226;  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  31. 

*  Past  and  Present,  215. 


io8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

from  the  beginning  of  his  literary  career  was  that  the 
task  should  be  started,  and  started  upon  the  right 
lines.     As  a  working  basis  for  everything  else  he  de- 
manded investigation.    "Our  political  Economists," 
he   said   in    1830,   at    a   time  of   acute    and   wide- 
spread disturbance,  "should  collect  statistical /ar/j 
j   such  as,  'What  is  the  lowest  sum  a  man  can  live  on  in 
I   various  countries?    What  is  the  highest  he  gets  to 
j   live  on?    How  many  people  work  with  their  hands? 
,'   How  many  with  their  heads?    How  many  not  at  all?' 
:   and  innumerable  such.    What  we  all  want  to  know  is 
the  condition  of  our  fellow-men;  and  strange  to  say  it 
i  is  the  thing  least  of  all  understood,  or  to  be  under- 
*   stood  as  matters  go."  ^    He  vigorously  assailed  and 
ridiculed  a  government  that  debated  endlessly  on 
r minor  issues  and  left  the  major  ones  to  take  care  of 
p  themselves:  "The  old  grand  question,  whether  A  is  to 
I'lbe  in  office  or  B,  with  the  innumerable  subsidiary 
questions  growing  out  of  that,  courting  paragraphs 
and  suffrages  for  a  blessed  solution  of  that:  Canada 
question,  Irish  Appropriation  question,  West-India 
question.  Queen's  Bedchamber  question;  Game  Laws, 
Usury  Laws;  African  Blacks,  Hill  Coolies,  Smithfield 
cattle,  and  Dog-carts, — all  manner  of  questions  and 
subjects,  except  simply  this  the  alpha  and  omega  of 
all!    Surely  Honourable  Members  ought  to  speak  of 
the    Condition-of-England    question    too."  ^     That 
Carlvl^  himself  knew  what  this  question  involved  we 
find  in  a  passage  closely  following  the  preceding,  a 
passage  that  reveals  a  grasp  of  the  practical  problems 
worthy    of    the    best    present-day    investigators: — 

1  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  II,  67.  -  Chartism,  iiz. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  109 

"What  constitutes  the  well-being  of  a  man?  Many 
things;  of  which  the  wages  he  gets,  and  the  bread 
he  buys  with  them,  are  but  one  preliminary  item. 
Grant,  however,  that  the  wages  were  the  whole; 
that  once  knowing  the  wages*  and  the  price  of  bread, 
we  know  all;  then  what  are  the  wages?  Statistic 
Inquiry,  in  its  present  unguided  condition,  cannot 
tell.  The  average  rate  of  day's  wages  is  not  cor- 
rectly ascertained  for  any  portion  of  this  country; 
not  only  not  for  half-centuries,  it  is  not  even  ascer- 
tained anywhere  for  decades  or  years:  far  from  insti- 
tuting comparisons  with  the  past,  the  present  itself 
is  unknown,  to  us.  And  then,  given  the  average  of 
wages,  what  is  the  constancy  of  employment:  what  is 
the  difficulty  of  finding  employment;  the  fluctuation 
from  season  to  season,  from  year  to  year?  Is  it 
constant,  calculable  wages;  or  fluctuating,  incalcu- 
lable, more  or  less  of  the  nature  of  gambling?  This 
secondary  circumstance,  of  quality  in  wages,  is  per- 
haps even  more  important  than  the  primary  one  of 
quantity.  Farther  we  ask,  Can  the  laborer,  by 
thrift  and  industry,  hope  to  rise  to  mastership;  or  is 
such  hope  cut  ofi^  from  him?  How  is  he  related  to 
his  employer;  by  bonds  of  friendliness  and  mutual 
help;  or  by  hostility,  opposition,  and  chains  of  mutual 
necessity  alone?  In  a  word,  what  degree  of  content- 
ment can  a  human  creature  be  supposed  to  enjoy  in 
that  position?  With  hunger  preying  on  him,  his 
contentment  is  likely  to  be  small!  But  even  with 
abundance,  his  discontent,  his  real  misery  may  be 
great.  The  laborer's  feelings,  his  notion  of  being 
justly  dealt  with  or  unjustly;  his  wholesome  compo- 


no  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

sure,  frugality,  prosperity  in  the  one  case,  his  acrid 
unrest,  recklessness,  gin-drinking,  and  gradual  ruin 
in  the  other, — how  shall  figures  of  arithmetic  repre- 
sent all  this?  So  much  is  still  to  be  ascertained;  much 
of  it  by  no  means  easy  to  ascertain!  Till,  among  the 
'Hill  Cooly'  and  'Dog-Cart'  questions,  there  arise  in 
Parliament  and  extensively  out  of  it  'a  Condition-of- 
England  question,'  and  quite  a  new  set  of  inquirers 
and  methods,  little  of  it  is  likely  to  be  ascertained.  .  . 
A  Legislature  making  laws  for  the  Working  Classes, 
in  total  uncertainty  as  to  these  things,  is  legislating 
in  the  dark;  not  wisely,  nor  to  good  issues.  The 
simple  fundamental  question.  Can  the  laboring  man 
in  this  England  of  ours,  who  is  willing  to  labor,  find 
work,  and  subsistence  by  his  work?  is  matter  of  mere 
conjecture  and  assertion  hitherto;  not  ascertainable 
by  authentic  evidence:  the  Legislature,  satisfied  to 
legislate  in  the  dark,  has  not  yet  sought  any  evidence 
\  on  it."  1 
^  Here  was  work  on  a  large  scale  for  the  state  to 
undertake.  Until  facts  were  available,  Carlyle 
insisted,  it  was  folly  to  propose  solutions  to  specific 
problems.  He  did  declare,  however,  not  only  that 
there  should  be  an  organization  of  labor  under  the 
new  chivalry  of  workers  and  masters,  and  that  the 
work  of  organization  should  be  mainly  done  by  the 
state;  he  confidently  laid  down  also  certain  principles 
by  which  he  believed  men  should  be  guided  in  the 
work  of  reconstruction  and  upon  which  all  specific 
measures  should  be  based.  To  begin  with,  he  re- 
peated his  old  doctrines  that  government  can  only  do 

'  Chartism,  117,  118. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LAROR  in 

what  the  people  demand  of  it  and  that  the  first  push, 
so  to  speak,  in  reorganization  must  come  from  the 
industrial  workers  themselves,  masters  and  men,  who 
see  the  problems  as  no  others  can,    "The  main  sub-'\ 
stance  of  this  immense  Problem  of  Organizing  Labor,  ] 
and  first  of  all  of  Managing  the  Working  Class,  will,  I 
it  is  very  clear,  have  to  be  solved  by  those  who  stand/ 
practically  in  the  middle  of  it;  by  those  who  them-' 
selves  work  and  preside  over  work.    Of  all  that  can  bes 
enacted  by  any  Parliament  in  regard  to  it,  the  germs 
must   already   lie   potentially   extant   in   those   two] 
Classes,  who  are  to  obey  such  enactment."  ^    That  isl 
to  say,  there  must  grow  up  proper  human  relations \ 
between  the  captains  of  industry  and  their  men.    In 
the  new  order  the  captain  will  be  a  kind  of  servant, 
ready  to  do  the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number, 
ambitious  to  be  a  just  master  rather  than  a  rich 
master,  one  who  knows  his  men  and  can  win  from 
them  steadfast  loyalty  by  reason  of  his  fair  and  hu- 
mane leadership.    The  cash-nexus  as  the  sole  connect- 
ing link  must  go.    "Love  of  men  cannot  be  bought  by\ 
cash-payment;  and  without  love  men  cannot  endure 
to  be  together."  ^    With  love  there  must  go  justice. 
No  worker  in   the  new  chivalry  of  labor  must  be) 
dependent  upon  the  charity  of  his  superiors.    "Not^f 
to  be  supported  by  roundsmen  systems,  by  never  so^. 
liberal  parish  doles,  or  lodged  in  free  and  easy  work-( 
houses  when  distress  overtakes  him;  not  for  this,  | 
however  in  words  he  may  clamor  for  it;  not  for  this,  ; 

1  Past  and  Present,  231.  I 

"^  Ibid.,  233.  Cf.  "It  is  not  by  Mechanism,  but  by  ReliRion; 
not  by  Self-interest,  but  by  Loyalty,  that  men  are  governed  or  govern- 
able."    (Characteristics,  37.) 


112  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

but  for  something  far  different  does  the  heart  of  him 
struggle.  It  is  'for  justice'  that  he  struggles;  for  'just 
wages/ — not  in  money  alone!  An  ever-toiling  in- 
ferior, he  would  fain  (though  as  yet  he  knows  it  not) 
find  for  himself  a  superior  that  should  lovingly  and 
wisely  govern:  is  not  that  too  the  'just  wages'  of  his 
service  done?  It  is  for  manlike  place  and  relation,  in 
this  world  where  he  sees  himself  a  man,  that  he 
struggles."  ^ 

But  if,  in  the  new  order,  masters  and  men  are 
united  by  relations  of  love  and  justice,  other  relations 
and  conditions  will  immediately  spring  up  from  these. 
A  fair  cash  payment  for  a  fair  day's  work  must  be  the 
indispensable  first  step  in  all  industrial  and  commer- 
cial operations  whatsoever;  and  it  will  be  the  business 
of  the  state  to  insure  this.  "  'A  fair  day's-wages  for 
a  fair  day's-work':  it  is  as  just  a  demand  as  Governed 
men  ever  made  of  Governing.  It  is  the  everlasting 
right  of  man.  .  .  .  The  progress  of  Human  Society 
consists  ever  in  this  same.  The  better  and  better 
apportioning  of  wages  to  work.  Give  me  this,  you 
have  given  me  all.  Pay  to  every  man  accurately 
what  he  has  worked  for,  what  he  has  earned  and  done 
and  deserved, — to  this  man  broad  lands  and  honors, 
to  that  man  high  gibbets  and  treadmills:  what  more 
have  I  to  ask?  Heaven's  Kingdom,  which  we  daily 
pray  for,  has  come;  God's  will  is  done  on  Earth  even 
as  it  is  in  Heaven !  This  is  the  radiance  of  celestial 
Justice;  in  the  light  or  in  the  fire  of-which  all  impedi- 
ments, vested  interests,  and  iron  cannon,  are  more 
and  more  melting  like  wax,  and  disappearing  from  the 

^Chartism,  123. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  113 

pathways  of  men.  A  thing  ever  struggling  forward; 
irrepressible,  advancing  inevitable;  perfecting  itself, 
all  days,  more  and  more, — never  to  ht  perfect  till  that 
general  Doomsday,  the  ultimate  Consummation,  and 
Last  of  earthly  Days."  ^ 

Compulsory  universal  Education  is  the  second  (  | 
great  task  for  the  state.  Intelligence  must  be  diffused 
over  the  world  like  sunlight,  if  society  is  to  be  quick- 
ened into  new  life.  The  peasant-born  Carlyle  never 
forgot  what  knowledge  might  mean  to  the  ignorant 
and  poor.  It  was  the  prime  necessity  of  man.  To 
impart  the  gift  of  thinking  to  those  who  could  not 
think  was  the  first  function  of  government.  In  a 
period  when  the  British  Empire  had  no  system  of 
national  training,  when  parliament  debated  whether 
"  a  small  fraction  of  the  Revenue  of  one  Day  (30,coo/. 
is  but  that) "  should  be  expended  upon  education, 
when  dissenters  called  for  one  scheme  and  the  Church 
of  England  for  another,  and  when  illiteracy  was 
universal,  Carlyle  came  forward  not  only  with  a  stern  A 
demand  for  general  education,  but  with  wise  practical  , 
suggestions  for  realizing  his  demand.  How,  he  asked,  / 
could  twenty-four  millions  of  striking,  rick-burning, 
discontented,  and  illiterate  toilers  be  brought  into 
order  and  happy  labor  by  the  intellectual  leadership 
of  a  mere  handful  of  the  aristoi  alone?  "The  intel- 
lect of  a  Bacon,  the  energy  of  a  Luther,  if  left  to  their 
own  strength,  might  pause  in  dismay  before  such  a 
task."  It  could  not  be  done!  The  workers  must 
themselves  be  educated  to  the  extent  of  their  capac- 
ity, so  that  their  knowledge  and   energy  might   be 

^  Past  and  Present,  i6,  17. 


114  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

contributed  collectively  to  the  solution  of  great  social 
problems.  Some  official,  appointed  by  the  state, 
working  with  a  national  committee,  should  send 
schoolmasters  and  "hornbooks"  into  every  parish 
and  hamlet  of  England  to  see  that  all  were  taught  to 
read,  under  penalties  and  civil  disabilities  for  those 
who  should  disobey  the  law! — "So  that,  in  ten  years 
hence,  an  Englishman  who  could  not  read  might  be 
acknowledged  as  a  monster."  ^ 

A  fair  day's  wage  for  a  fair  day's  work  and  univer- 
sal compulsory  education  were  thus  to  be  the  founda- 
i  tions  in  the  new  chivalry  of  labor.     But  Carlyle's 
^  program  of  reform  went  very  much  further  and  in- 
cluded other  aims  and  purposes  of  a  comprehensive 
character,  some  of  which  have  been  carried  out  since 
his  day,  while  others  await  fulfilment  in  times  to 
come.    Carlyle  would  hardly  be  called  timid  even  by 
his  most  fanatical  disciples;  and  yet  (such  was  the 
force  of  public  opinion  in  1850  against  state  interfer- 
ence) he  brought  forward  some  of  his  most  suggestive 
proposals  in  a  tentative  and  hesitating  spirit,  lest  they 
should  be  condemned  out  of  hand  as  "visionary." 
'  On  one  principle,  however,  he  was  firm  as  adamant, — 
/the  principle  of  permanence  of  employment.     The 
/  organization  of  industry  upon  the  old  basis  of  "no- 
,.madic"   contract   must   be  abandoned   as  hopeless. 
[Employers  and  workers   alike  should  be  bound  to- 
]  gether  in  loyalty  to  a  common  cause,  cherishing  as 
!  their  chief  glory  the  glory  of  work  well  done,  and  as 
\their  chief  disgrace  the  failure  to  perform  their  part  in 

*  Chartism,  i8o;  cf.  also,  Past  and  Present,  228;  Latter-Day  Pamphlets, 
142;  Shooting  Niagara,  233. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  115 

the  collective  task.  Only  through  permanent  contract  ' 
could  this  ideal  be  realized.  A  man  must  have  time^  \ 
if  he  is  to  come  into  possession  of  a  house  and  home,  ' 
if  he  is  to  strike  his  roots  into  congenial  soil — not  his 
"oak-roots"  merely,  but  his  "heart-roots"  also! 
For  it  is  only  when  such  rootage  has  been  established 
that  nourishment  can  be  drawn  from  the  hidden 
sources  of  life,  those  memories  and  associations,  both 
domestic  and  commercial,  out  of  which  are  created 
the  incorruptible  stability  essential  to  every  worker. 
But  the  principle  of  permanent  contract,  Carlyle 
thought,  depended  upon  another  principle,  which 
(writing  in  1843)  he  seemed  to  regard  as  too  advanced 
and  too  full  of  difficulties  to  be  more  than  mentioned. 
He  meant  the  principle  of  permanent  economic 
interest  in  the  management  of  the  industry.  "A  ■ 
question  arises  here,"  he  says:  "Whether,  in  some 
ulterior,  pferhaps  some  not  far-distant  stage  of  the 
'Chivalry  of  Labor,'  your  Master- Worker  may  not' 
find  it  possible,  and  needful,  to  grant  his  Workers 
permanent  interest  in  his  enterprise  and  theirs?  So 
that  it  become,  in  practical  result,  what  in  essential 
fact  and  justice  it  ever  is,  a  joint  enterprise;  all  men, 
from  the  Chief  Master  down  to  the  lowest  Overseer 
and  Operative,  economically  as  well  as  loyally  con- 
cerned for  it? — Which  question  I  do  not  answer. 
The  answer,  near  or  else  far,  is  perhaps,  Yes; — and 
yet  one  knows  the  difficulties.  Despotism  is  essential 
in  most  enterprises;  I  am  told  they  do  not  tolerate 
'freedom  of  debate'  on  board  a  Seventy-four!  Re- 
publican senate  and  plebiscita  would  not  answer  well 
in  Cotton-Mills.     And  yet  observe  there  too:  Free- 


ii6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

dom,  not  nomad's  or  ape's  Freedom,  but  man's 
Freedom,  this  is  indispensable.  We  must  have  it, 
and  will  have  it!  To  reconcile  Despotism  with  Free- 
dom:— well,  is  that  such  a  mystery?  Do  you  not 
already  know  the  way  ?  It  is  to  make  your  Despotism 
just.  Rigorous  as  Destiny;  but  just  too,  as  Destiny 
and  its  Laws.  The  Laws  of  God:  all  men  obey  these, 
and  have  no  'Freedom'  at  all  but  in  obeying  them. 
The  way  is  already  known,  part  of  the  way, — and 
courage  and  some  qualities  are  needed  for  walking 
on  it!"  ^  The  note  in  this  remarkable  utterance, 
however  hesitating,  is  the  note  of  prophecy.  The 
penetrating  eye  of  the  seer  had  a  fleeting  revelation 
of  the  far  future,  when  control  in  industry  should  be 
democratic  and  the  spirit  in  it,  the  spirit  of  fellowship. 
But  if  English  industries  are  to  be  set  right,  they 
must  not  only  be  created  upon  the  principles  of  per- 
manence of  contract  and  co-operative  control;  they 
must  recover  from  their  paroxysm  of  competition  and 
must  undertake  the  tasks  of  distribution  upon  a 
wholly  new  basis.  The  England  of  Carlyle's  day 
believed  that  national  existence  depended  upon 
selling  manufactured  cotton  at  a  farthing  an  ell 
cheaper  than  any  other  people, — with  what  disas- 
trous effects  upon  English  life  both  Carlyle  and 
Ruskin  have  eloquently  set  forth.  In  the  new  era, 
under  a  chivalry  of  labor,  inventive  minds  will  quit 
their  ceaseless  efforts  to  sell  cotton  at  cut-throat 
prices,  and  will  turn  their  attention  to  the  problems 
of  fairer  distribution  at  prices  consistent  with  a  just 
standard  of  life.    "To  be  a  noble  Master,  among  noble 

*  Past  and  Present,  241. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR         117 

Workers,"  said  Carlyle,  "will  again  be  the  first  am- 
bition with  some  few;  to  be  a  rich  Master  only  the. 
second.    How  the  Inventive  Genius  of  England,  with  \ 
the  whirr  of  its  bobbins  and  billy-rollers  shoved  some-  1 
what  into  the  backgrounds  of  the  brain,  will  contrive 
and   devise,   not   cheaper   produce   exclusively,   but 
fairer   distribution    of   the   produce   at   its   present 
cheapness!"  ^ 

In  truth,  once  you  introduce  the  principle  of  gov-^ 
ernmental  or  social  control,  upon  a  basis  of  sounder   | 
ethical  values  in  human  life,  your  field  of  reconstruc-   / 
tion,    both   for   private   and    for   public   enterprise,  j 
becomes  unlimited.     It  was  in  the  wider  and  wider, 
establishment  of  this  principle  that  Carlyle  saw  hope' 
for  the  society  of  the  future.     His  vision  of  what 
might  be  done  was  truly  far-sighted,   and  perhaps 
nothing  so  well  evidences  his  prophetic  sense  of  the 
possibilities  in  store  for  some  form  of  community 
control  as  the  following  passage  from  Past  and  Pres- 
ent^ written  of  course  years  before  many  of  its  proph- 
ecies were  even  begun  to  be  realized: — "Of  Time-Bill,     \ 
Factory-Bill  and  other  such  Bills  the  present  Editor 
has  no  authority  to  speak.    He  knows  not,  it  is  for 

^  Past  and  Present,  232;  cf.  also,  ibid.,  157-8.  It  is  perhaps  worth 
while  in  this  connection  to  note  that  Carlyle,  in  spite  of  his  condemnation 
of  money-loving  Captains  of  Industry  of  the  unreformed  Plugson  type 
and  .of  his  large  emphasis  upon  the  moral  relations  of  business  and  indus- 
try, was  not  without  sanity  and  practical  sense  respecting  commerce 
and  its  machinery:  "I  know  Mammon  too;  Banks  of  England,  Credit- 
Systems,  world-wide  possibilities  of  work  and  traffic;  and  applaud  and 
admire  them.  Mammon  is  like  Fire;  the  usefulest  of  all  servants,  if  the 
frightfulest  of  all  Masters!  ....  Those  Laws  of  the  Shop-till  are  in- 
disputable to  me;  and  practically  useful  in  certain  departments  of  the 
Universe,  as  the  multiplication  table  itself."  {Past  and  Present,  247; 
Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  38.) 


ii8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

others  than  he  to  know,  in  what  specific  ways  it  may 
be  feasible  to  interfere,  with  Legislation,  between  the 
Workers  and  the  Master-Workers; — knows  only  and 
sees,  what  all  men  are  beginning  to  see,  that  Legisla- 
tive interference,  and  interferences  not  a  few  are 
indispensable;  that  as  a  lawless  anarchy  of  supply- 
and-demand,  on  market-wages  alone,  this  province 
of  things  cannot  longer  be  left.  Nay  interference  has 
begun:  there  are  already  Factory  Inspectors, — who 
seem  to  have  no  lack  of  work.  Perhaps  there  might 
be  Mine-Inspectors  too: — might  there  not  be  Furrow- 
field  Inspectors  withal,  and  ascertain  for  us  how  on 
seven  and  sixpence  a  week  a  human  family  does  live! 
Interference  has  begun;  it  must  continue,  must  ex- 
tensively enlarge  itself,  deepen  and  sharpen  itself. 
Such  things  cannot  longer  be  idly  lapped  in  darkness, 
and  suffered  to  go  on  unseen:  the  Heavens  do  see 
them;  the  curse,  not  the  blessing  of  the  Heavens  is  on 
an  Earth  that  refuses  to  see  them. 

"  Again,  are  not  Sanitary  Regulations  possible  for  a 
Legislature?  The  old  Romans  had  their  ifEdiles;  who 
would,  I  think,  in  direct  contravention  to  supply-and- 
demand,  have  rigorously  seen  rammed  up  into  total 
abolition  many  a  foul  cellar  in  our  Southwarks, 
Saint-Gileses,  and  dark  poison-lanes;  saying  sternly, 
'Shall  a  Roman  man  dwell  there?'  The  Legislature, 
at  whatever  cost  of  consequences,  would  have  had  to 
answer,  'God  forbid!' — The  Legislature,  even  as  it 
now  is,  could  order  all  dingy  Manufacturing  Towns 
to  cease  from  their  soot  and  darkness;  to  let  in  the 
blessed  sunlight,  the  blue  of  Heaven,  and  become 
clear  and  clean;  to  burn  their  coal-smoke,  namely. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR         119 

and  make  flame  of  it.  Baths,  free  air,  a  wholesome 
temperature,  ceilings  twenty  feet  high,  might  be 
ordained,  by  Act  of  Parliament,  in  all  establishments 
licensed  as  Mills.  There  are  such  Mills  already 
extant; — honor  to  the  builders  of  them!  The  Legis- 
lature can  say  to  others:  Go  ye  and  do  likewise;  better 
if  you  can. 

"  Every  toiling  Manchester,  its  smoke  and  soot  all 
burnt,  ought  it  not,  among  so  many  world-wide  con- 
quests, to  have  a  hundred  acres  or  so  of  free  green- 
field,  with  trees  on  it,  conquered,  for  its  little  children 
to  disport  in;  for  its  all-conquering  workers  to  take  a 
breath  of  twilight  air  in?  You  would  say  so!  A 
willing  Legislature  could  say  so  with  effect.  A  willing 
Legislature  could  say  very  many  things!  And  to 
whatsoever  'vested  interest,'  or  such  like,  stood  up, 
gainsaying  merely,  'I  shall  lose  profits,' — the  willing 
Legislature  would  answer,  'Yes,  but  my  sons  and 
daughters  will  gain  health,  and  life,  and  a  soul.' — 
'What  is  to  become  of  our  Cotton-trade?'  cried 
certain  Spinners,  when  the  Factory  Bill  was  pro- 
posed; 'What  is  to  become  of  our  invaluable  Cotton- 
trade?'  The  Humanity  of  England  answered  stead- 
fastly: 'Deliver  me  these  rickety  perishing  souls  of 
infants,  and  let  your  Cotton-trade  take  its  chance. 
God  Himself  commands  the  one  thing;  not  God 
especially  the  other  thing.  We  cannot  have  prosper- 
ous Cotton-trades  at  the  expense  of  keeping  the 
Devil  a  partner  in  them!'"^     In  another  passage, 

*  Past  and  Present,  226.  Carlyle  praised  the  new  Poor  Laws  (of  1834) 
for  its  substitution  of  government  commissioners  in  place  of  the  local 
overseers  of  the  old  ineffectual  corrupt  system.  {Chartism,  123).  He 
repeatedly  advocated  state  aid  to  emigration  as  a  sound  means  of  reliev- 


I20  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

written  in  1867,  a  passage  that  suggests  the  influence 
of  Ruskin  even  more  than  the  passage  just  quoted, 
parlyle  looked  forward  to  very  definite  invasions  of 
/British  industrial  and  social  *' rights"  through  laws  to 
/  be  enacted  by  a  wise  legislature.  "  Most  certain  it  is, 
an  immense  Body  of  Laws  upon  these  new  Industrial, 
Commercial,  Railway,  etc.  Phenomena  of  ours  are 
pressingly  wanted;  and  none  of  mortals  knows  where 
to  get  them.  For  example,  the  Rivers  and  running 
Streams  of  England;  primordial  elements  of  this  our 
poor  Birthland,  face-features  of  it,  created  by  Heaven 
itself:  Is  Industry  free  to  tumble  out  whatever  hor- 
ror of  refuse  it  may  have  arrived  at  into  the  nearest 
crystal  brook?  Regardless  of  gods  and  men  and 
little  fishes.  Is  Free  Industry  free  to  convert  all  our 
rivers  into  Acherontic  sewers;  England  generally  into 
a  roaring  sooty  smith's  forge?  Are  we  all  doomed 
to  eat  dust,  as  the  old  Serpent  was,  and  to  breathe 
solutions  of  soot?  Can  a  Railway  Company  with 
*  Promoters'  manage,  by  feeing  certain  men  in  the 
bombazeen,  to  burst  through  your  bedroom  in  the 
night-watches,  and  miraculously  set  all  your  crockery 
jingling?  Is  an  Englishman's  house  still  his  castle; 
^and  in  what  sense?"  ^ 

But  these  and  other  great  ends  will  not  be  realized 
until  the  state  shall  have  created  the  new  chivalry 
of  labor.  To  this  ideal  Carlyle  returned  as  his  highest 
conception  of  social  reform.    Again  and  again  there 

ing  congested  populations,  and  as  an  antidote  to  Malthusian  doctrines. 
{Sartor,  209;  Characteristics,  35;  Chartism,  182-186.)  He  urged,  indeed, 
the  establishment  of  a  government  emigration  service.  {Past  and  Pres' 
ent,  225.) 

*  Shooting  Niagara,  239. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  121 

rose  up  before  him  the  vision  of  what  a  government 
might  do  that  could  drill  thousands  of  discontented, 
idle,  disunited  individuals  into  an  army  of  soldiers  for 
the  purposes  of  war, — obedient,  united,  loyal,  brave! 
Why  might  not  a  vast  and  powerful  collective  effort 
such  as  this  be  applied  to  the  infinitely  tangled  social 
problems  of  the  modern  world, — to  the  work  of  saving 
and  beautifying  life,  instead  of  maiming  or  destroy- 
ing it?  Let  Government,  then,  proceed  to  organize 
"industrial  regiments  of  the  New  Era."  Let  there  be 
soldiers  of  industry  as  well  as  soldiers  of  war.  The 
paupers  and  idlers  should  be  regimented  first,  and 
compelled  to  work,  if  they  would  not  willingly  do  so. 
Gradually,  year  by  year,  decade  by  decade,  genera- 
tion after  generation,  the  organization  would  spread 
outward  and  upward,  until  in  all  industries  there 
would  be  captains  and  soldiers  of  the  new  chivalry. 
Thus  directed  by  the  state  through  wise  masters 
and  loyal,  contented  servants,  government-controlled 
industries  would  furnish  models  for  private  enter- 
prise,— which  in  turn  would  be  compelled,  through 
force  of  example  and  through  force  of  associated 
workers,  to  regiment  its  workers  and  to  substitute 
the  spirit  of  co-operation  for  the  spirit  of  competition 
in  all  its  multitudinous  ranks,  until  its  reorganization 
were  complete.  "Wise  obedience  and  wise  command, 
I  foresee  that  the  regimenting  of  Pauper  Banditti  into 
Soldiers  of  Industry  is  but  the  beginning  of  this 
blessed  process,  which  will  extend  to  the  topmost 
heights  of  our  Society;  and,  in  the  course  of  genera- 
tions, make  us  all  once  more  a  Governed  Common- 
wealth, and  Civitas  Dei^  if  it  please  God!    Waste-land 


122  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Industrials  succeeding,  other  kinds  of  Industry,  as 
cloth-making,  shoe-making,  plough-making,  spade- 
making,  house-building, — in  the  end,  all  kinds  of 
Industry  whatsoever,  will  be  found  capable  of  regi- 
menting. Mill-operatives,  all  manner  of  free  opera- 
tives, as  yet  unregimented,  nomadic  under  private 
masters,  they,  seeing  such  example  and  its  blessed- 
ness, will  say: '  Masters,  you  must  regiment  us  a  little; 
make  our  interests  with  you  permanent  a  little, 
instead  of  temporary  and  nomadic;  we  will  enlist 
with  the  State  otherwise ! '  This  will  go  on,  on  the  one 
hand,  while  the  State-operation  goes  on,  on  the  other: 
thus  will  all  Masters  of  Workmen,  private  Captains 
of  Industry,  be  forced  to  incessantly  co-operate  with 
the  State  and  its  public  Captains;  they  regimenting 
in  their  way,  the  State  in  its  way,  with  ever-widening 
field;  till  their  fields  meet  (so  to  speak)  and  coalesce, 
and  there  be  no  unregimented  worker,  or  such  only 
as  are  fit  to  remain  unregimented,  any  more."  ^  The 
wonderful  possibilities  of  appeal  to  the  spiritual 
forces  in  human  nature  contained  in  such  a  reorgani- 
/zation  of  industry  was  suggested  by  Carlyle  in  his 
/  last  political  essay:  "What  is  to  hinder  the  acknowl- 
edged King  in  all  corners  of  his  territory,  to  introduce 
wisely  a  universal  system  of  Drill,  not  military  only, 
but  human  in  all  kinds;  so  that  no  child  or  man  born 
in  his  territory  might  miss  the  benefit  of  it, — which 
would  be  immense  to  man,  woman  and  child?  I 
would  begin  with  it,  in  mild,  soft  forms,  so  soon 
almost  as  my  children  were  able  to  stand  on  their  legs; 
and  I  would  never  wholly  remit  it  till  they  had  done 

^Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  141. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  123 

with  the  world  and  me.  Poor  Wilderspin  knew 
something  of  this;  the  great  Goethe  evidently  knew  a 
great  deal!  This  of  outwardly  combined  and  plainly 
consociared  Discipline,  in  simultaneous  movement 
and  action,  which  may  be  practical,  symbolical, 
artistic,  mechanical  in  all  degrees  and  modes, — is  one 
of  the  noblest  capabilities  of  man  (most  sadly  under- 
valued hitherto);  and  one  he  takes  the  greatest 
pleasure  in  exercising  and  unfolding,  not  to  mention 
at  all  the  invaluable  benefit  it  would  afford  him  if 
unfolded.  From  correct  marching  in  line,  to  rhyth- 
mic dancing  to  cotillion  or  minuet, — and  to  infinitely 
higher  degrees  (that  of  symboling  in  concert  your 
'first  reverence,'  for  instance,  supposing  reverence 
and  symbol  of  it  to  be  both  sincere!) — there  is  a 
natural  charm  in  it;  the  fulfilment  of  a  deep-seated, 
universal  desire,  to  all  rhythmic  social  creatures!  In 
man's  heaven-born  Docility,  or  power  of  being 
Educated,  it  is  estimable  as  perhaps  the  deepest  and 
richest  element;  or  the  next  to  that  of  music,  of  Sensi- 
bility to  Song,  to  Harmony  and  Number,  which  some 
have  reckoned  the  deepest  of  all.  A  richer  mine  than 
any  in  California  for  poor  human  creatures;  richer  by 
what  a  multiple;  and  hitherto  as  good  as  never 
opened, — worked  only  for  the  Fighting  purpose."^ 
Thus  "by  degrees"  there  will  come  a  renewed  soci- 
ety, an  ideal  world  towards  which  each  generation, 
playing  its  part,  may  hasten  an  approximation; — 
a  vast  federated  community  of  heroic  workers,  each 
unit  of  which  does  its  work  in  its  appointed  place. 
"Give  every  man  the  meed  of  honor  he  has  merited, 

^Shooting  Niagara,   235. 


124  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

you  have  the  ideal  world  of  poets;  a  hierarchy  of 
beneficences,  your  noblest  man  at  the  summit  of 
affairs,  and  in  every  place  the  due  gradation  of  the 
fittest  for  that  place:  a  maximum  of  wisdom  works 
and  administers,  followed,  as  is  inevitable,  by  a 
maximum  of  success.  It  is  a  world  such  as  the  idle 
poets  dream  of, — such  as  the  active  poets,  the  heroic 
and  the  true  of  men,  are  incessantly  toiling  to  achieve, 
and  more  and  more  realize.  Achieved,  realized,  it 
never  can  be;  striven  after  and  approximated  to,  it 
must  forever  be, — woe  to  us  if  at  any  time  it  be  not! 
Other  aim  in  this  Earth  we  have  none.  Renounce 
such  aim  as  vain  and  hopeless,  reject  it  altogether, 
what  more  have  you  to  reject?  You  have  renounced 
fealty  to  Nature  and  its  almighty  Maker.  ...  To 
give  our  approval  aright, — alas,  to  dp  every  one  of  us 
what  lies  in  him,  that  the  honorable  man  every- 
where, and  he  only  have  honor,  that  the  able  man 
everywhere  be  put  into  the  place  which  is  fit  for  him, 
which  is  his  by  eternal  right:  is  not  this  the  sum  of  all 
social  morality  for  every  citizen  of  this  world?  This 
one  duty  perfectly  done,  what  more  could  the  world 
have  done  for  it?  The  world  in  all  departments  and 
aspects  of  it  were  a  perfect  world;  everywhere  admin- 
istered by  the  best  wisdom  discernible  in  it,  every- 
where enjoying  the  exact  maximum  of  success  and 
felicity  possible  for  it."  ^ 

Carlyle's  hope  for  the  inauguration  of  this  new 
order  rested  upon  a  "remnant"  -already  in  exist- 
ence,— the  few  noble  masters  and  the  small  company 
of  noble  workers,  to  whom  he  made  his  final  appeal. 

•  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  220,  22 1. 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR  125 

He  called  upon  them,  from  the  Prime  Minister  down 
to  the  least  citizen,  to  lead  in  the  huge  task  of  resist- 
ing the  rising  tide  of  anarchy  and  unrest.^  But  his 
call  was  directed  chiefly  to  the  small  company  of 
aristoi,  or  noble  few,  who  must  at  all  costs  keep  in 
control  the  revolutionary  spirit  of  the  many.  He 
looked  for  some  response  from  the  ranks  of  the  titular 
aristocracy,  but  he  believed  that  the  burden  of  the 
work  of  wise  social  leadership  in  the  future  would  fall 
upon  the  *' natural"  aristocracy.  Of  these,  he  said, 
there  are  two  orders, — the  men  of  genius  (writers, 
poets,  seers,  sages),  and  the  men  of  industry,  since 
the  true  captain  of  industry  is  "already  almost  an! 
Aristocrat  by  class."  To  these  he  called  as  to  a  select  I 
company  of  the  gifted^  men  of  vision,  men  of  courage, 
men  of  natural  nobility,  each  working  in  his  proper 
field,  according  to  his  ability,  each  loyally  co-operat- 
ing to  bring  about  the  new  chivalry  of  labor.^  LInder 
the  leadership  of  these  "industrial  heroes,"  there 
shall  be  created  an  ever  increasing  company  of  work- 
ers who  by  their  associated  labors  shall  fashion  the 
material  for  the  new  epic  of  the  future.  It  shall  not 
be  another  song  of  brutal  victories  over  brother  men, 
but  a  song  of  conquests  over  "Discord,  Idleness, 
Injustice,  Unreason,  and  Chaos."  Carlyle's  vision  of 
a  reconstructed  social  order  culminates  in  a  challeng- 
ing chant  to  this  militant  fellowship  of  to-morrow: — 
"But  it  is  to  you,  ye  Workers,  who  do  already  work, 
and  are  as  grown  men,  noble  and  honorable  in  a  sort, 

*  Carlyle  regarded  Sir  Robert  Peel  as  the  man  called  by  destiny  to  be 
foremost  in  the  new  movement.  Cf.  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  143-4;  also 
ibid.,  108-142. 

^Shooting  Niagara,  212-219;  Past  and  Present,  248-249,  253-255. 


126  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

that  the  whole  world  calls  for  new  work  and  noble- 
ness. Subdue  mutiny,  discord,  wide-spread  despair, 
by  manfulness,  justice,  mercy,  and  wisdom.  Chaos 
is  dark,  deep  as  Hell;  let  the  light  be,  and  there  is 
instead  a  green  flowery  World.  Oh,  it  is  great,  and 
there  is  no  other  greatness.  To  make  some  nook  of 
God's  Creation  a  little  fruitfuller,  better,  more  worthy 
of  God;  to  make  some  human  hearts  a  little  wiser, 
manfuler,  happier, — more  blessed,  less  accursed!  It 
is  work  for  a  God.  Sooty  Hell  of  mutiny  and 
savagery  and  despair  can,  by  man's  energy,  be  made 
a  kind  of  Heaven;  cleared  of  its  soot,  of  its  mutiny,  of 
its  need  to  mutiny;  the  everlasting  arch  of  Heaven's 
azure  overspanning  it  too,  and  its  cunning  mechanism 
and  tall  chimney-steeples,  as  a  birth  of  Heaven;  God 
and  all  men  looking  on  it  well  pleased. 

"Unstained  by  wasteful  deformities,  by  wasted 
tears  or  heart's-blood  of  men,  or  any  defacement  of 
the  Pit,  noble  fruitful  Labor,  growing  ever  nobler, 
will  come  forth, — the  grand  sole  miracle  of  Man; 
whereby  Man  has  risen  from  the  low  places  of  this 
Earth,  very  literally,  into  divine  Heavens.  Ploughers, 
Spinners,  Builders;  Prophets,  Poets,  Kings;  Brind- 
leys  and  Goethes,  Odins  and  Arkwrights;  all  martyrs, 
and  noble  men,  and  gods  are  of  one  grand  Host; 
immeasurable;  marching  ever  forward  since  the  begin- 
nings of  the  World.  The  enormous,  all-conquering, 
flame-crowned  Host,  noble  every  soldier  in  it;  sacred, 
and  alone  noble.  Let  him  who  is,  not  of  it  hide  him- 
self; let  him  tremble  for  himself.  Stars  at  every 
button  cannot  make  him  noble;  sheaves  of  Bath- 
garters,  nor  bushels  of  Georges;  nor  any  other  con- 


THE  NEW  CHIVALRY  OF  LABOR         127 

trivance  but  manfully  enlisting  in  it,  valiantly  taking 
place  and  step  in  it.  O  Heavens,  will  he  not  bethink 
himself;  he  too  is  so  needed  in  the  Host!  It  were  so 
blessed,  thrice-blessed,  for  himself  and  for  us  all.  In 
hope  of  the  Last  Partridge,  and  some  Duke  of  Wei- 
mar among  our  English  Dukes,  we  will  be  patient 
yet  a  while."^ 

1  Past  and  Present,  255.  / 

/ 


CHAPTER  IV 
MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE 

"The  one  soul  now  in  the  world  who  seems  to  feel  as 
I  do  on  the  highest  matters,  and  speaks  mir  aus  dem 
Herzen  exactly  what  I  wanted  to  hear.  .  .  .  Many, 
many  are  the  Phoebus  Apollo  celestial  arrows  you  still 
have  to  shoot  into  the  foul  Pythons  and  poison  our 
abominable  Megatheriums  and  Plesiosaurians  that  go 
staggering  about,  large  as  cathedrals,  in  our  sunk  Epoch 
again." — Carlyle  (letter  to  Ruskin,  1869). 

"Only  one  man  in  England — Thomas  Carlyle — to 
whom  I  can  look  for  steady  guidance.  .  .  .  Read  your 
Carlyle  with  all  your  heart,  and  with  the  best  of  brain  you 
can  give;  and  you  will  learn  from  him  first,  the  eternity  of 
good  law,  and  the  need  of  obedience  to  it:  then,  concerning 
your  own  immediate  business,  you  will  learn  farther  this, 
that  the  beginning  of  all  good  law,  and  nearly  the  end  of  it, 
is  in  these  two  ordinances, — That  every  man  shall  do  good 
work  for  his  bread:  and  secondly,  that  every  man  shall 
have  good  bread  for  his  work." — Ruskin. 

In  1850  Carlyle  finished  his  Latter-Day  Pamph- 
lets. In  1852  he  entered  upon  the  long  wrestle 
of  thirteen  years  with  his  last  great  work,  the 
History  of  Frederick  the  Great.  He  withdrew  to  the 
sound-proof  room  constructed  upon  the  roof  of  his 
house  at  No.  5  Cheyne  Row,  as  a  refuge  from  the  dis- 
tracting noises  of  near-by  fowls  and  pianos;  and 
henceforth,  "sucked  by  the  mud-nymphs"  into  the 
depths  of  old  folios  and  documents,  he  was  little  seen 
except  by  a  small  circle  of  admirers,  who  came  regu- 
larly to  hear  his  lamentations  upon  the  swift  down- 

128 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  129 

ward  course  of  society, — lamentations  lighted  up  by 
the  incomparably  graphic  sketches  of  men  and  events 
for  which  the  sage  of  Chelsea  was  by  this  time  famous. 
Always  inclined  to  be  a  solitary  student,  Carlyle  was 
more  than  ever  secluded  during  these  later  years  of 
haggard  toil.  True  to  his  own  gospel  of  labor  to  the 
end,  however,  he  completed  the  Frederick  in  1865,  in 
five  monumental  volumes.  But  the  task  had  nearly 
broken  him,  and  had  left  him  an  old  man.  He  was 
still  further  shattered  in  this  year  by  the  sudden 
death  of  Mrs.  Carlyle.  Only  once  more,  in  1867,  the 
year  of  the  second  Reform  Bill,  therefore,  did  he 
really  speak  out  in  print  on  the  condition  of  Eng- 
land,— in  a  kind  of  final  latter-day  pamphlet  called 
Shooting  Niagara  and  After.  His  literary  life  was 
practically  over.  An  embattled  veteran,  he  now 
retired  from  the  field  and  left  the  struggle  to  other 
and  younger  leaders,  of  whom  the  most  brilliant  and 
most  effectual,  in  his  opinion,  was  his  disciple,  John 
Ruskin. 

No  other  event  in  the  literary  history  of  the  nine-  ( 
teenth  century  is  at  first  thought  more  surprising    | 
than  that  Ruskin,  lover  of  beauty  and  evangelist  of    \ 
art,  should  become  in  any  sense  a  disciple  of  Carlyle, 
who  seldom  spoke  of  art  but  with  contempt  and  who     ' 
rarely  regarded  nature  but  as  the  somber  and  solemn   / 
theater  of  man's  struggles  or  as  the  mystical  mani-  [ 
festation  of  a  transcendental  God.    The  contrasts  are 
indeed  more  conspicuous  to  us  than  the  similarities, 
particularly  if  we  recall  the  first  forty  years  in  the  life 
of  each.    Carlyle,  peasant  born,  reached  success  and 
renown  after  years  of  effort  along  a  pathway  beset 


130  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

with  obstacles,  and  his  struggles  left  him  grim  and 
defiant  in  temper  and  infinitely  stern  in  his  concep- 
tion of  the  work  that  man  was  created  to  do.  It  was 
far  otherwise  with  Ruskin.  The  road  upon  which  he 
was  destined  to  travel  seems  to  have  been  marked 
out  for  him  from  the  beginning  and  to  have  led  him 
swiftly  and  brilliantly  to  fame.  His  parentage  was 
Scotch,  though  he  was  born  in  London,  the  only 
child  of  a  prosperous  wine-merchant.  The  elder 
Ruskin  was  a  gentleman-merchant  of  the  olden  time, 
a  man  of  refined  and  cultivated  tastes,  who  read  the 
best  literature,  could  put  his  son  through  two  books 
of  Livy,  knew  how  to  paint  a  little  ("He  never 
allowed  me  for  an  instant  to  look  at  a  bad  picture," 
said  the  son),  delighted  in  architecture  and  landscape, 
and  cherished  a  distant  and  romantic  reverence  for  the 
nobility  and  for  aristocratic  environments.  The  in- 
tensely ethical  spirit  that  was  born  in  the  boy  and 
that  forty  years  later  attached  him  so  strongly  to 
Carlyle  must  have  come  mainly,  although  not  en- 
tirely, from  his  mother.  She  was  a  severe  and  narrow- 
minded  Puritan,  proud,  reserved  and  domestically 
devoted, — a  woman,  evidently,  of  great  strength  of 
mind,  but  very  rigid,  very  formal,  and  very  precise. 
In  his  Pr(zterita  Ruskin  has  described  with  great 
fulness  and  charm  the  home  and  the  education  which 
these  parents  provided  for  him.  The  picture  is  not 
without  its  somber  coloring,  for  the  reader  cannot 
overlook  the  "monastic  severities  and  aristocratic 
dignities"  of  that  sheltered  household,  where  there 
were  few  playthings  and  no  playmates,  and  where  the 
puritanical  gloom  of  recurring  Sundays  left  a  shadow 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  131 

upon  the  memory  of  the  sensitive  boy.  But  the 
youthful  ecstasies  would  have  lost  something  of  their 
intensity,  perhaps,  without  these  tragic  contrasts. 
At  any  rate  no  reader  of  Ruskin  is  likely  to  forget  the 
autobiographical  accounts  of  those  fortunate  influ- 
ences and  activities  that  had  so  much  to  do  with  the 
making  of  the  man; — the  early  reading  of  Scott, 
Shakespeare,  Pope's  Homer,  and  the  Bible,  the 
drawing  and  sketching,  the  unsatiable  curiosity  over 
nature's  ways,  and  the  wonderful  coaching  tours  all 
about  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales,  and  on  the  con- 
tinent. His  father,  a  "beautiful  reader,"  was  accus- 
tomed to  read  aloud,  in  the  small  home  circle,  from 
the  best  poetry  and  prose,  always  choosing  what  was 
most  wholesome  and  noble.  His  mother  with  heroic 
resolution  obliged  him  to  read  the  Bible  "every 
syllable  through,  aloud,  hard  names  and  all,  about 
once  a  year,"  for  at  least  sixteen  times,  and  to  com- 
mit long  chapters  to  memory,  thus  teaching  him,  he 
says,  to  know  that  "accuracy  of  diction  means 
accuracy  of  sensation."  The  influence  of  nature  was 
ever  more  formative  than  that  of  books.  Ruskin's 
passionate  and  life-long  delight  in  natural  beauty 
sprang  from  the  deepest  sources  of  his  soul.  "The 
habit  of  fixed  attention  wirh  both  eves  and  mind,"  he 
says,  was  the  "mam  iuculty"  of  his  life.  He  tells  in 
Prccterita  of  his  "rapturous  and  riveted  attention" 
to  the  ways  of  plants  and  running  water;  of  his  star- 
ing "all  day  long  at  the  tumbling  and  creaming 
strength  of  the  sea";  of  his  "indescribable  rapture" 
when  allowed  to  enter  a  cave  in  order  to  see  its 
mineral  deposits,  for  mineralogy  always  inspired  him 


132  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

with  its  "romantic  and  visionary  charm."  He  tells, 
too,  of  his  watching  the  "rich  color  of  the  folds  and 
creases"  of  the  pulpit-cushion,  when  thumped  by  the 
tedious  preacher,  and  of  his  looking  with  "closest 
attention"  upon  the  "proceedings  of  any  bricklayers, 
stone-sawyers,  or  paviers."  These  innate  aptitudes 
of  the  boy  were  quickened  and  cultivated  in  the  best 
of  all  possible  ways.  It  was  the  annual  custom  of  the 
elder  Ruskin  for  many  years  to  spend  several  weeks 
of  the  summer  in  traveling  by  coach  about  the  coun- 
try-side taking  orders  for  sherry  from  aristocratic 
patrons.  After  the  most  delightful  and  leisurely 
fashion  they  visited  castles,  cathedrals,  ruins,  galler- 
ies, parks,  lakes,  and  mountains,  omitting  nothing  of 
historical  or  intrinsic  interest  the  country  over. 
These  were  days  of  "passionate  happiness"  for  the 
youthful  Ruskin,  whose  sensitive  mind  was  all  the 
while  laying  up  an  inexhaustible  treasure  of  beautiful 
impressions.  It  was  at  this  time  that  impulses  were 
awakened  in  his  heart,  of  which  he  spoke  years  after, 
when  busy  with  art  work  in  Verona:  "There*  is  a 
strong  instinct  in  me  which  I  cannot  analyse  to  draw 
and  describe  the  things  I  love — not  for  reputation, 
nor  for  the  good  of  others,  nor  for  my  own  advantage, 
j  but  a  sort  of  instinct  like  that  for  eating  or  drinking." 
V  And  so  he  began  to  keep  a  diary  and  to  write  verses 
without  number,  and  to  draw  (for  drawing  lessons 
had  already  commenced),  recreating  by  word  or  line 
the  scenes  that  never  ceased  to  thrill  him.  Thus 
started  in  youth  a  career  that  continued  without 
interruption  for  fifty-eight  years  (Ruskin's  first 
printed  book  appeared  in   1830,  his  last  in   1889). 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  133 

Meanwhile  his  formal  education  went  on  with  the 
help  of  private  tutors,  until  he  was  graduated  in  1842 
from  Christ  Church  College,  Oxford. 

Ruskin's  leap  into  fame  the  next  year  with  the 
publication  of  the  first  volume  of  Modem  Painters  is 
inseparably  connected  with  the  name  of  Turner.  By 
184J,  Turner's  reputation  as  the  first  of  landscape 
painters  was  established;  he  had  long  been  a  member 
of  the  Royal  x^cademy,  he  had  made  a  fortune  from 
his  pictures,  and  he  was  now  living  the  life  of  an 
eccentric  recluse.  But  he  was  passing  into  his  later 
manner,  and  the  critics  were  violently  attacking  his 
work.  In  the  brutally  frank  language  then  current, 
they  described  his  paintings  as  meaningless  dreams, 
impossible  and  ridiculous.  These  attacks  raised 
Ruskin  to  "the  height  of  a  black  anger,"  and  he  at 
once  rushed  to  the  defense  of  his  idol  with  the  aban- 
don of  youth  and  genius.  Young  as  he  was,  his 
enthusiasm  for  Turner  was  even  then  old.  Perhaps 
the  most  precious  gift  he  ever  received  was  a  copy  of 
Roger's  Italy,  illustrated  with  vignettes  by  Turner, 
which  came  to  him  at  his  thirteenth  birthday.  He 
began  copying  the  artist  at  fourteen,  and  at  seventeen 
he  flung  off  his  first  reply  to  Blackwood's  criticism,  a 
defense  in  which  he  spoke  of  Turner's  art  as  "embod- 
ied enchantment,  delineated  magic,"  and  as  "seizing 
the  soul  and  essence  of  nature."  Before  he  was 
twenty-one,  his  father  had  given  him  two  Turners, 
and  when  he  was  of  age  he  began  collecting  for  him- 
self, until  the  Ruskin  house  contained  one  of  the 
choicest  collections  in  England,  numbering  even  by 
i860,  says  his  biographer,  "  two  oil  pictures  and  more 


134  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

than  a  hundred  drawings  and  sketches."  "When  I 
die,"  Ruskin  said  once  to  a  visitor  at  Brantwood  to 
whom  he  was  showing  the  Turners  in  his  bedroom, 
"I  hope  that  they  may  be  the  last  things  my  eyes 
will  rest  on  in  this  world."  They  were  to  him  a  sym- 
bol of  all  the  loveliness  in  nature  and  of  all  the  mys- 
tery and  tragedy  in  man, — "studied  melodies  of 
exquisite  color"  and  "deeply-toned  poems,"  an 
epitome  of  all  that  he  best  loved  in  nature  and 
most  revered  in  art. 

The  defense  of  a  misunderstood  and  maligned 
painter,  undertaken  in  an  essay,  grew  into  a  book, 
and  then  into  other  books,  leading  Ruskin  into  ever- 
widening  fields  of  interest  and  literary  production. 
The  interpretation  and  criticism  of  art  was  the  main 
occupation  of  his  hfe  up  to  i860.  He  was  intermit- 
tently engaged  upon  Modern  Painters  for  seventeen 
years,  and  he  did  not  even  then  really  complete  the 
work.  The  first  volume  appeared  in  1843;  ^^^  second 
in  1846.  Then  came  two  works  on  architecture. 
The  Seven  Lamps  of  Architecture  in  1849,  and  The 
Stones  of  Venice^  in  three  volumes,  1 851-1853.  The 
third  and  fourth  volumes  of  Modern  Painters  were 
published  in  1856,  and  the  fifth  and  last  in  i860.  In 
this  year  Ruskin's  reputation,  as  Sir  E.  C.  Cook, 
his  biographer  and  editor,  says,  "stood  probably  at 
its  highest  point."  In  spite  of  severe  criticisms  upon 
his  writings,  many  of  them  amply  justified  because  of 
the  paradoxes  and  dogmatisms  which  they  contain, 
he  was  rightly  regarded  by  the  more  judicious  of  his 
contemporaries  as  the  man  who  had  done  more  than 
any  other  to  awaken  the  people  of  England  to  a  feel- 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  135 

ing  for  art  and  beauty,  and  was  exalted  by  his  fellow 
writers  as  a  master  who,  by  his  miraculous  use  of 
words,  had  wrought  new  splendors  into  the  fabric  of 
English  prose.  The  younger  artists,  too,  were  capti- 
vated by  him.  Holman  Hunt  sat  up  most  of  a  night 
reading  a  borrowed  copy  of  Modern  PainterSy  until 
the  "echo  of  its  words"  remained  an  enchantment  to 
his  ears.  William  Morris  and  Burne-Jones  hailed 
him  as  a  "Luther  of  the  Arts,"  and  to  groups  of  Ox- 
ford friends  Morris  spouted  passages  of  his  prose  in  a 
voice  that  fired  his  listeners  with  enthusiastic  admi- 
ration. When  the  young  Pre-Raphaelites  were  at- 
tacked in  1850  and  1851,  Millais,  in  anger  and  despair, 
went  to  Ruskin,  who  at  once  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
Times  in  their  defense,  turning  the  tide  in  their  favor; 
and  who  made  gerierous  offers  for  their  pictures  to 
Millais,  Hunt,  and  Rossetti.  Ruskin's  achievement 
had  thus  been  in  a  high  degree  remarkable.  At 
twenty-three,  in  an  ecstacy  of  indignation,  he  had 
left  his  drawing  and  his  mountain  rambling  to  cham- 
pion a  maligned  reputation,  with  little  thought  of  the 
way  he  was  destined  to  go.  At  forty  he  stood  upon 
the  summit  of  his  power  and  his  fame,  the  author  of 
more  than  a  dozen  books  on  painting  and  architecture, 
and  an  acknowledged  interpreter  of  the  beautiful  in 
nature  and  art  such  as  England  had  not  hitherto 
produced. 

Then  came  a  change.  Ruskin  now  turned  from  a 
study  of  art  to  a  study  of  society,  and  his  reputation 
for  a  time  collapsed.  He  has  himself  fixed  i860  as  the 
year  of  his  apostasy.  He  had  gone  to  Switzerland  for 
rest  after  finishing  the  fifth  volume  of  Modem  Paint- 


136  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

ers.  "I  got  this  bound  volume,"  he  says,  "in  the 
Valley  of  St.  Martin's  in  that  summer,  and  in  the 
Valley  of  Chamouni  I  gave  up  my  art-work,  and 
wrote  this  little  book  {Unto  this  Last),  the  beginning 
of  the  days  of  reprobation."  ^  But  the  change  which 
was  announced  to  his  astonished  readers  by  the 
publication  of  some  essays  exclusively  devoted  to  a 
discussion  of  social  and  economic  problems  had  in 
reality  been  going  on  with  increasing  momentum  for 
more  than  a  decade.  As  far  back  as  the  earliest  days 
of  Modern  Painters,  when  the  Ruskin  household 
received  as  guests  the  daughters  (with  their  aristo- 
cratic husbands)  of  Mr.  Domecq,  Spanish  partner  in 
the  wine  trade,  and  the  talk  ran  upon  the  manage- 
ment of  the  English  market  and  the  estates  both  in 
France  and  Spain,  the  surprised  young  author  heard 
these  foreign  landlords  speak  "of  their  Spanish 
laborers  and  French  tenantry,  with  no  idea  what- 
ever respecting  them  but  that,  except  as  producers 
by  their  labor  of  money  to  be  spent  in  Paris,  they 
were  cumberers  of  the  ground."  These  discussions, 
he  says,  "gave  me  the  first  clue  to  the  real  sources  of 
wrong  in  the  social  laws  of  modern  Europe;  and  led 
me  necessarily  into  the  political  work  which  has  been 
the  most  earnest  of  my  life.  ...  It  was  already 
beginning  to  be,  if  not  a  question,  at  least  a  marvel  to 
me,  that  these  graceful  and  gay  Andalusians,  who 
played  guitars,  danced  boleros,  and  fought  bulls, 
should  virtually  get  no  good  of  their  own  beautiful 
country  but  the  bunch  of  grapes  or  stalk  of  garlic 
they  frugally  dined  on;  that  its  precious  wine  was  not 

^fForks,  XXII,  512. 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  137 

for  them,  still  less  the  money  it  was  sold  for;  but  the 
one  came  to  crown  our  Vandalic  feasts,  and  the  other 
furnished  our  Danish  walls  with  pictures,  our  Danish 
gardens  with  milk  and  honey,  and  five  noble  houses  in 
Paris  with  the  means  of  beautiful  dominance  in  its 
Elysian  fields."  ^  Not  many  years  later,  in  1847, 
during  a  tour  in  Scotland,  Ruskin  describes  in  a  letter 
his  distressed  mood  when  seeing  some  fishermen  at 
Dunbar,  "I  cannot  understand  how  you  merry 
people  can  smile  through  the  world  as  you  do.  It 
seems  to  me  a  sad  one — more  suffering  than  pleasure 
in  it,  and  less  of  hope  than  of  either — at  least  if  the 
interpretations  set  by  the  most  pious  people  on  the 
Bible  be  true,  and  if  not,  then  worse  still.  But  it  is 
woeful  to  see  these  poor  fishermen  toiling  all  night 
and  bringing  in  a  few  casks  of  herring  each,  twice  a 
week  or  so,  and  lying  watching  their  nets  dry  on  the 
cliflFs  all  day;  their  wives  and  children  abused  and 
dirty — scolding,  fighting,  and  roaring  through  their 
unvarying  lives.  How  much  more  enviable  the  sea- 
gulls that,  all  this  stormy  day,  have  been  tossing 
themselves  off  and  on  the  crags  and  winds  like  flakes 
of  snow,  and  screaming  with  very  joy."  ^ 

Gradually  this  sheltered  student,  this  lover  of  blue 
hills  and  Turnerian  visions,  began  to  observe  men  as 
well  as  mountains  and  to  note  that  however  much  the 
glory  of  God  might  be  revealed  in  nature  it  was  but 
dimly  reflected  in  the  works  and  ways  of  His  human 
creatures.  He  saw  luxury  and  misery,  unabashed, 
developing  side  by  side  at  a  prodigious  rate  in  the 
decade  1848-1858,  and  at  times  he  became  prey  to 

»  Works,  XXXV,  409.  2  Cook,  Life  of  Ruskin,  I,  214. 


138  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

moods  of  acute  depression,  when  his  own  pursuit  of 
art  seemed  to  him  not  selfish  merely,  but  utterly- 
useless.    He  was  in  France  in  1848,  the  year  of  revo- 
lution, where  he  saw  in  the  streets  of  Paris  and  Rouen 
mobs   of  dissipated   and   desperate   people   moving 
about  as  if  ready  to  commit  acts  of  violence,  and  he 
was  deeply  agitated.    His  letters  from  this  time  on 
contain  reverberations  of  the  inner  disturbance  and 
clearly  indicate    that  the  "passionate  happiness"  of 
f   earlier  days  was  fast  disappearing  under  pressure  of 
I    new  moods.    Nothing  in  the  personality  of  Ruskin  is 
I    more   significant   than   this   late   awakening   to   the 

i  tragic  contrasts  between  the  beauty  of  nature  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  misery  and  folly  of  mankind  on  the 
.  other.  Signs  of  this  awakening  are  to  be  found  with 
1  increasing  frequency  in  every  fresh  book  on  art, 
\  excepting  only  the  first  volume  of  Modern  Painters. 
His  study  of  architecture  in  particular  drew  Ruskin 
further  and  further  into  social  problems,  and,  as  we 
shall  see  later,  in  his  Stones  of  Venice  he  laid  the 
foundation  of  all  his  social  philosophy.  In  1854  he 
began  lecturing  to  drawing  classes  at  the  Working 
Men's  College  in  London,  where  for  the  inaugural 
meeting  a  reprint  of  his  chapter  on  Gothic  in  Stones 
had  been  distributed  as  a  manifesto  of  the  aims  of  the 
institution;  and  in  1857  he  delivered  two  lectures  at 
Manchester  on  the  political  economy  of  art,  in  which 
he  attacked  the  laissez-faire  economists  within  their 
own  stronghold.  In  the  light  of  these  multiplying 
interests,  which  were  more  and  more  diverting  him 
from  art,  it  is  easy  for  the  student  of  Ruskin's  social 
philosophy  to  accept  as  the  literal  truth  a  confession 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  139 

which  appears  in  the  last  volume  o{  Modem  Painters. 
His  discussions  of  painters  and  pictures,  he  says, 
were  "continually  altered  in  shape,  and  even  warped 
and  broken,  by  digressions  respecting  social  topics, 
which  had  for  me  an  interest  tenfold  greater  than  the 
work  I  had  been  forced  into  undertaking"  {i.  <?., 
"forced"  by  his  father  to  finish  Modern  Painters). 
"Nay,"  he  says  in  a  closing  chapter,  "I  have  many 
passages  of  history  to  examine,  before  I  can  determine 
the  just  limits  of  the  hope  in  which  I  may  permit 
myself  to  continue  to  labor  in  any  cause  of  Art."  ^  . 
Ruskin's  books  on  political  economy  are  Unto  This\ 
Last  (i860  in  magazine,  1862  in  book);  Muneral 
Pulveris  (i 862-1 863  in  magazine,  1872  in  book);! 
and  Time  and  Tide,  1867.  The  first,  which  he  called! 
"that  central  book  of  my  life"  because  it  contains 
the  substance  of  all  that  he  had  to  say  after  i860,  is 
a  collection  of  four  papers  written  in  the  solitude  of 
the  Alps  and  published  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine^  of 
which  Thackeray  was  then  editor.  The  series  was 
abruptly  stopped  with  the  fourth  number,  owing  to 
the  storm  of  protests  from  the  reading  public. ^  A 
like  fate  awaited  Munera  Pulveris ^  composed  of  four 
articles  which  Froude,  then  editor  of  Frasers,  was 
bold  enough  to  accept,  but  which  the  publishers  re- 
fused to  continue.  Time  and  Tide  is  a  series  of 
twenty-five  letters  to  Thomas  Dixon,  a  cork-cutter  of* 

';ror;&/,  VII,  257,423. 

'The  position  of  the  editor,  as  well  as  the  state  of  public  opinion,  is 
suggested  in  the  following  sentence  from  a  letter  of  Ruskin's  father: 
"John  was  obliged  to  put  'J.  R.,'  as  the  Editor  would  not  be  answerable 
for  opinions  so  opposed  to  Malthus  and  the  Times  and  the  City  of  Man- 
chester." (Ruskin's  Works,  XVII,  intra.,  XXVI.) 


I40  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

r  Sunderland.      They    appeared    in    the    Manchester 
^  Examiner  and  the  Leeds  Guardian^  and  contained  the 
\   fullest  statement  that  Ruskin  had  yet  made  concern- 
\  ing  social  reform.     With  these  three  central  books 
^should  also  be  included  Sesame  and  Lilies  (1865), 
Crown  of  Wild  Olive  (1866),  most  of  which  were  first 
given  to  the  public  in  the  form  of  lectures;  and  that 
amazing  congeries  of  Ruskiniana,  Fors  Clavigera^  a 
collection  of  ninety-six  letters,  appearing  monthly, 
addressed  "to  the  workmen  and  laborers  of  Great 
..Britain."    The  first  letter  is  dated  January  i,  1871, 
'and  the  last,  Christmas,  1884, — the  whole  therefore 
'covering  a  period  of  thirteen  years  and  including, 
amid  a  mass  of  digressions  and  personalia,  a  succes- 
sion of  jeremiads  on  the  shams  and  corruptions  in 
modern    life,    besides   many   schemes    and   brilliant 
suggestions  of  social  reconstruction.^    Sir  E.  C.  Cook, 
Ruskin's  biographer,  in  some  extracts  from  the  con- 
temporary press,  has  vividly  suggested  in  what  spirit 
the  economic  heresies  of  an  art  critic  were  accepted 
by  the  British  public:  "eruptions  of  windy  hyster- 
ics," they  were  called,  "intolerable  twaddle,"  and 
""  absolute    nonsense," — with    many    other    verbal 
amenities  of  like  import.    The  reviews  railed  at  him 
as  a  quixotic  rhapsodist  who  had  suddenly  lost  his 
head,  as  an  intruder  into  an  alien  field  where  senti- 
mentalities were  out  of  place.    Friends  withdrew  from 
him  in  disgust.     When    Unto   This  Last  appeared, 
Rossetti  called  it  "bosh"  and  declared  that  Ruskin 

^  During  these  years,  1860-1880,  Ruskin  continued  of  course  to  write 
and  lecture  upon  art; — he  was  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Arts  at  Oxford 
from  1870  to  1878,  and  again  in  1883.  But  he  rarely  spoke  about  art 
without  launching  into  long  digressions  on  social  questions. 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  141 

talked  "awful  nonsense."  Ruskin  himself  wrote  that 
people  were  now  accustomed  to  hear  him  spoken  of 
by  artists  as  a  "superannuated  enthusiast,"  and  by 
philosophers  and  practical  people  as  a  "delirious 
visionary."  "As  alone  as  a  stone  on  a  high  glacier," 
is  his  description  of  himself  to  C.  E.  Norton  in  that 
period.  As  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison  aptly  suggests, 
Ruskin  like  Dante  had  found  himself  midway  upon 
his  life's  journey  "in  a  dark  wood  where  straight  the 
way  was  lost." 

Out  of  the  darkness  of  those  years  almost  the  only 
voice  of  encouragement  was  the  voice  of  Carlyle. 
Carlyle  was  not  blind  to  the  weaknesses  of  Ruskin: 
"sensitive,"  "flighty,"  "headlong,"  are  some  of  the 
terms  which  he  used  to  describe  the  impetuous  vivac- 
ity of  his  disciple,  in  whom  he  undoubtedly  missed  a 
wholesome  steadiness  and  robustness  such  as  he 
found  in  the  earlier  Tennyson  or  in  Browning.  Nor 
did  he  unqualifiedly  approve  of  all  that  Ruskin  said 
and  did.  Some  of  the  fantastic  schemes  set  forth  in 
the  later  numbers  o(  Fors  cooled  his  enthusiasm,  and 
the  St.  George's  Company  he  regarded  as  "utterly 
absurd,"  thinking  it  "a  joke  at  first."  But  he  recog- 
nized Ruskin's  brilliant  powers, — his  "vivacity,"  his 
"high  and  pure  morality,"  his  "celestial  brightness"; 
and  he  dedicated  to  him  his  last  book.  The  Early 
Kings  of  Norway.,  in  words  that  express  the  afl^ection- 
ate  regard  which  had  grown  up  between  master  and 
disciple:  "To  my  dear  and  ethereal  Ruskin,  whom 
God  preserve.  Chelsea,  4  May,  1875.  T.  Carlyle." 
Most  of  all  Carlyle  rejoiced  in  the  bold  frontal  attacks 
that  Ruskin  was  making  upon  the  "dismal "  science  of 


142  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

,  political  economy.  "While  all  the  world  stands 
tremulous,  shilly-shallying  from  the  gutter,"  he 
wrote,  "impetuous  Ruskin  plunges  his  rapier  up  to 
the  very  hilt  in  the  abominable  belly  of  the  vast  block- 
headism,  and  leaves  it  staring  very  considerably."  ^ 
"There  is  nothing  going  on  among  us,"  he  wrote  to 
Emerson,  "as  notable  to  me  as  those  fierce  lightning- 
bolts  Ruskin  is  copiously  and  desperately  pouring 
into  the  black  world  of  Anarchy  all  around  him.  No 
other  man  in  England  that  I  meet  has  in  him  the 
divine  rage  against  iniquity,  falsity,  and  baseness 
that  Ruskin  has."^  He  read  the  books  on  social  and 
political  economy  as  they  appeared,  and  he  ap- 
'  plauded  their  style  and  truth  in  a  way  that  immensely 
heartened  Ruskin,  who  of  all  men  living  reverenced 
Carlyle  most.  That  a  man  who  had  "entirely  blown 
up"  the  hoary  conventions  in  the  world  of  art  should 
now  turn  his  guns  upon  "half  a  million  dull  British 
heads,"  "the  Dismal-Science  people"  included,  was 

/  something  to  fire  the  weary  patriarch  of  Chelsea 
with  new  hope.^ 

^  Froude,  Life  of  Carlyle,  IV,  280.  . 

2  Carlyle-Emerson  Correspondence,  II,  3  88. 

'  Carlyle's  comments  on  Ruskin's  books  are  characteristic.  After 
reading  one  of  the  chapters  of  Unto  This  Last,  he  wrote:  "I  have  read 
your  paper  with  exhilaration,  exultation,  often  with  laughter,  with  bra- 
vissimo!  ....  I  marvel  in  parts  at  the  lynx-eyed  sharpness  of  j'our 
logic,  at  the  pincer-grip  (red-hot  pincers)  you  take  of  certain  bloated 
cheeks  and  blown-up  bellies.  .  .  .  If  you  dispose,  stand  to  that  kind  of 
work  for  the  next  seven  years,  and  work  out  then  a  result  like  what  you 
have  done  in  painting.  .  .  .  Meantime  my  joy  is  great  to  find  myself 
henceforth  in  a  minority  of  two,  at  any  rate.'.'  (Ruskin,  Works,  XVII, 
intro.  XXXIII.)  0(  Munera  Pulveris,  he  said:  "In  every  part  I  find 
a  high  and  noble  sort  of  truth,  not  one  doctrine  that  I  can  intrinsically 
dissent  from,  or  count  other  than  salutary  in  the  extreme,  and  pressingly 
needed  in  England  above  all.  .  .  .    There  is  a  felicity  of  utterance  in 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  143 

The  precise  time  when  Ruskin  first  met  Carlyle  has 
not  been  fixed,  although  it  must  have  been  as  early  as 
1 850,  for  in  his  journal  of  that  year  Carlyle  made  note 
of  an  evening  call  from  Ruskin.  During  the  years 
imrnediately  following,  although  Ruskin  was  already 
a  devoted  worshiper  of  Carlyle  and  often  visited  the 
Carlyles  at  Cheyne  Row,^  their  intercourse  could 
not  have  been  intimate,  for  the  parents  of  Ruskin 
were  fearful  of  the  'perverting'  influence  of  the  older 
man  who,  they  thought,  was  more  than  any  one  else 
responsible  for  leading  their  son  "out  of  the  way  of 
fame — and  into  that  of  suffering."  But  after  the 
death  of  John  James  Ruskin  in  1864  and  of  Mrs. 
Carlyle  in  1866,  the  two  were  drawn  together  into  an 
almost  uninterrupted  relationship  of  mutual  affection 
and  admiration, — tempered  on  Ruskin's  side  with  a 
profound  veneration  for  the  character  and  achieve- 
ment of  one  whom  he  now  habitually  looked  up  to  as 
his  master.2 

it,  here  and  there,  such  as  I  remember  in  no  other  writer,  living  or  dead, 
and  it's  all  as  true  as  gospel."  {Ibid.,  LXX.)  After  finishing  the  fifth 
number  of  Fors,  he  wrote:  "Every  word  of  it  as  is  spoken,  not  out  of 
my  poor  heart  only,  but  out  of  the  eternal  skies;  words  winged  with 
Empyrean  wisdom,  piercing  as  lightning.  .  .  .  Continue,  while  you 
have  such  utterances  in  you,  to  give  them  voice."  {Ibid.,  XXVII,  intro. 
LXXXVI.)  Carlyle  was  much  struck  with  Ruskin's  style,  praising  his 
"power  of  expression"  again  and  again;  e.  g.,  "Passages  of  that  last 
book,  'Queen  of  the  Air,'  went  into  my  heart  like  arrows.  .  .  .  His 
description  of  the  wings  of  birds  the  most  beautiful  things  of  the  kind  that 
can  possibly  be." 

^  Mrs.  Carlyle  once  said:  "No  one  managed  Carlyle  so  well  as  Ruskin; 
It  was  quite  beautiful  to  see  him."  Like  many  others  Ruskin  recognized 
the  brilliancy  of  Mrs.  Carlyle  but  did  not  like  her  sharp  tongue.  He 
once  referred  to  her  as  a  "shrew." 

^  There  are  characteristic  touches  of  effusive  sentiment  on  Ruskin's 
side:  "I  am  your  faithful  and  devoted  son  in  the  Florentine  sense," 
he  wrote  in  one  of  his  almost  daily  letters  from  abroad  to  Carlyle  in 


144  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Ruskin  had  felt  the  force  of  Carlyle's  teaching  in 
his  early  years,  when  the  message  of  Sartor  and  Heroes 
had  aroused  him  from  a  fit  of  uncertainty  and  made 
him  resolve  "to  do  something,  to  be  something  use- 
ful." Later  on  he  read  Past  and  Present^  Latter-Day 
Pamphlets^  and  the  histories,  quoting  repeatedly 
from  them  in  his  own  books  and  referring  to  them 
and  their  creator  in  words  that  express  the  most 
enthusiastic  appreciation.  The  "pure  lightning"  of 
Carlyle's  style  and  the  "white-hot  fire"  of  energy 
and  thought  which  it  conveyed  alike  excited  his 
wonder.  The  French  Revolution  and  the  Frederick 
the  Great  were  to  him  "immortal"  work  done  by 
"the  greatest  of  historians  since  Tacitus."  "All  of 
your  work  is  grandly  done,"  he  told  Carlyle  in  1871. 
The  books  that  influenced  him  most,  however,  were 
Past  and  Present  and  Latter-Day  Pamphlets.  The 
first  he  evidently  read  and  reread,  for  when  he  gave 
away  his  "much  scored"  copy  to  a  friend  he  wrote: 
"I  have  sent  you  a  book  which  I  read  no  more  be- 
cause it  has  become  a  part  of  myself,  and  my  old 
marks  in  it  are  now  useless,  because  in  my  heart  I 
mark  it  all."  In  the  tenth  Fors  Ruskin  recommended 
the  reading  of  this  much  loved  book  to  workingmen 
in  these  words:  "Now,  I  tell  you  once  for  all,  Carlyle 
is  the  only  living  writer  who  has  spoken  the  absolute 
and    perpetual    truth    about    yourselves    and    your 

1874.  "Ever  your  most  loving  disciple,"  he  wrote  on  another  occasion. 
C.  E.  Norton  entertained  the  two  together  at  luncheon  in  1872:  "Each 
was  delightful  with  the  other,  and  each  so  perfectly  at  ease,  so  entirely 
free  from  self-consciousness  of  any  disagreeable  sort,  so  devoid  t)f  arro- 
gance or  disposition  to  produce  false  effect,  each  also  was  so  full  of  humor 
and  of  thought,  that  the  talk  was  of  the  best  ever  heard."  {Letters  of 
Norton,  I,  441.) 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  145 

business.  .  .  .  Read  your  Carlyle,  then,  with  all 
your  heart,"  Upon  the  subject  of  social  and  political 
reform,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  in  these  two 
books,  together  with  Sartor^  Carlyle  had  "said  all 
that  needs  to  be  said,  and  far  better  than  I  shall 
ever  say  it  again. "^ 

•  Cj.  "  I've  been  reading  Latter-Days  again,  chiefly  'Jesuitism.'  I 
can't  think  what  Mr.  Carlyle  wants  me  to  write  anything  more  for — if 
people  don't  attend  to  that,  what  more  is  to  be  said?  {Letters,  1,428.) 
Ruskin's  appreciations  of  Carlyle  are  almost  too  numerous  to  quote,  and 
yet  the  perusal  of  them  greatly  strengthens  the  reader's  conviction  of  the 
intimate  relationship  existing  between  the  two  men.  "What  can  you  say 
of  Carlyle,"  said  Ruskin  to  Froude,  "but  that  he  was  born  in  the  clouds 
and  struck  by  lightning.^"  .  .  .  "The  greatest  of  our  English  thinkers 
.  .  .  our  one  quite  clear-sighted  thinker,  Carlyle."  Ruskin  spoke  of  the 
"mighty  interests — its  measureless  pathos"  of  Carlyle's  Reminiscences. 
He  was  on  the  side  of  Froude,  not  of  Norton,  in  the  literary  row  that  was 
stirred  up  over  the  publications  following  Carlyle's  death,  and  Froude 
regarded  him  as  the  "only  person  to  whom  I  can  talk  about  Carlyle. " 
(Cook,  Life  of  Ruskin,  II,  505-6.)  Ruskin  in  fact  read  Carlyle  "so  con- 
stantly, that,  without  wilfully  setting  myself  to  imitate  him,  I  find  myself 
perpetually  falling  into  his  modes  of  e.xpression,  and  saying  many  things 
in  a  'quite  other,'  and  I  hope,  stronger,  way,  than  I  should  have  adopted 
some  years  ago.  ...  So  that  I  find  Carlyle's  stronger  thinking  coloring 
mine  continually."     (Ruskin,  JVorks,  V,  427-8.) 

Of  all  the  expressions  of  reverent  appreciation  that  Ruskin  avowed,  the 
following  in  which  he  urges  Carlyle  to  a  final  work  after  the  Frederick  is 
perhaps  the  best:  "It  seems  to  me,"  he  wrote  October  i,  1866,  "that  a 
magnificent  closing  work  for  you  to  do  would  be  to  set  your  finger  on  the 
turning  points  and  barriers  in  European  history,  to  gather  them  into 
train  of  light, — to  give  without  troubling  yourself  about  detail  or  proof, 
your  own  final  impression  of  the  courses  and  causes  of  things — and  your 
thoughts  of  the  leading  men,  who  they  were,  and  what  they  were.  If  you 
like  to  do  this,  I'll  come  and  write  for  you  a  piece  every  day,  if  after 
beginning  it  you  still  found  the  mere  hand  work  troublesome.  I  have  a 
notion  it  would  be  very  wholesome  work  for  me,  and  it  would  be  very 
proud  and  dear  for  me."  (/For^j,  XXXVI,  518;  c/.  also  526.)  In  his  own 
closing  days  when  his  work  was  nearly  over,  Ruskin  had  plans  of  writing 
about  Carlyle.  For  one  thing  he  proposed  to  collect  and  edit  Carlyle's 
descriptions  of  people  (ibid.,  XXXVII,  568);  for  another,  he  thought  of 
writing  a  small  volume,  as  Cook  says,  "partly  to  vindicate,  and  partly  to 
supplement  Froude."  {Ibid.,  XXXV,  intra.  XXIV.) 


146  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

The  influence  of  Carlyle  upon  Ruskin,  therefore, 
particularly  after  i860,  was  both  continuous  and 
powerful. 1  Accordingly  when  in  1872  Ruskin  dedi- 
cated his  Munera  Pulveris  "to  the  friend  and  guide 
who  has  urged  me  to  all  chief  honor,  Thomas  Car- 
lyle," he  was  stating  the  literal  truth.  For  as  the 
ethical  and  social  interests  gained  ascendancy  over 
the  aesthetic  in  Ruskin,  he  was  increasingly  conscious 
of  many  links  of  sympathy  between  himself  and  his 
/  master.  The  similarities  in  the  two  men  at  this 
/  period  are  more  striking  than  the  differences.  Both 
rested  all  their  teaching  on  art,  history,  and  life  upon 
fact^  as  they  liked  to  call  it.^  They  sought  to  pierce 
through  the  shows  and  shams  to  the  solid  ground  of 
eternal  veracity  beneath;  and  to  show  that  it  was  in 
this  soil  alone,  in  the  deep  heart  of  our  common 
humanity,  that  beauty  and  truth  and  goodness  must 
have  their  roots  if  they  were  to  live  and  flourish. 
Hence  they  could  not  tolerate  a  spirit  of  pretense  or 
levity  anywhere,  and  they  were  suspicious  of  any- 
thing in  art  or  life  that  seemed  to  be  created  merely 
for  amusement.     Both  believed  in  reverence,  rever- 

^As  early  as  1854  Ruskin  in  a  lecture  publicly  acknowledged  that  he 
owed  more  to  Carlyle  than  to  any  other  writer.  {Works,  XII,  507.)  In 
185s  Ruskin  wrote  to  Carlyle:  "How  much  your  general  influence  has 
told  upon  me,  I  know  not,  but  I  always  confess  it,  or  rather  boast  of  it,  in 
conversation  about  you."  {Ibid.,  XXXVI,  184.)  Twenty-five  years 
later  he  wrote  to  Miss  Susan  Beever:  "We  feel  so  much  alike  that 
you  may  often  mistake  one  for  the  other  now."  {Ibid.,  XXXVII, 
320.) 

2  In  a  letter  to  Froude  (1873)  Ruskin  said:  "I  am  not  the  institutor, 
still  less  the  guide — but  I  am  the  Exponent  of  the  Reaction  for  Veracity 
in  Art  which  corresponds  partly  to  Carlyle's  and  your  work  in 
History,  and  partly  to  Linnaeus's  in  natural  science."  {Works,  XXXVII, 
83.) 


MASTER  AND  DISCIPLE  147 

ence  for  the  fundamental  facts  of  life  as  well  as  for 
superior  men;  and  Ruskin  was  as  truly  a  hero- wor- 
shiper as  Carlyle.  Both  stood  staunchly  for  a  gospel 
of  work  and  held  that  the  foundation  of  all  religion 
is  "in  resolving  to  do  our  work  well."  Each  had  the 
same  invincible  and  simple  faith  in  the  plain  dictates 
of  conscience,  insisting  that  right  is  right  and  wrong  is 
wrong  in  spite  of  the  sophistications  of  dilettanti 
and  wiseacres,  and  that  "courage  and  chastity  and 
honesty  and  patience  bring  out  good;  and  cowardice 
and  luxury  and  folly  and  impatience,  evil."  Ruskin, 
like  Carlyle,  reduced  everything  that  he  taught  to 
the  simple  proposition  that  man  has  within  him  "  that 
singular  force  anciently  called  a  soul."  Consequently 
they  had  much  the  same  view  and  temper  towards 
modern  science,  which,  they  thought,  took  the  mys- 
tery out  of  things  and  was  arrogant  and  assuming  in 
its  pretensions.  Finally,  they  both  looked  backward 
to  a  medieval  age  for  suggestions  of  a  new  social 
order;  and,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  subsequent  chapter, 
they  thought  and  preached  alike  upon  many  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  social  reconstruction.  In 
the  light  of  these  many  affinities,  therefore,  both  in 
ideas  and  accomplishments,  we  can  appreciate  the 
accuracy  of  Ruskin's  statement,  when  he  spoke  of 
Carlyle  as  having  led  in  an  attack  upon  the  English 
Dagon,  and  of  himself  as  merely  fulfilling  what  Car- 
lyle had  already  begun.  The  truth  was  exactly  ex- 
pressed by  Froude,  who  knew  well  both  master  and 
disciple,  when  he  said:  "Ruskin  seemed  to  be  catch- 
ing the  fiery  cross  from  (Carlyle's)  hand,  as  his  own 
strength  was  failing."    The  new  chivalry  of  labor  was 


148  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

thus  to  be  championed  by  one  who  was  more  of  a 
medievahst  than  Carlyle,  and  who,  hke  a  knight-er- 
rant of  old  time,  went  out  alone  into  the  wilderness  of 
the  modern  world  to  slay  the  dragons  and  to  restore 
the  haunts  of  man  to  their  ancient  peace. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  APOSTLE  OF  ART  AND  THE 
MODERN  WORLD 

"The  first  schools  of  beauty  must  be  the  streets  of  your 
cities,  and  the  chief  of  our  fair  designs  must  be  to  keep  the 
living  creations  round  us  clean  and  in  human  comfort.  .  .  . 
Beautiful  art  can  only  be  produced  by  people  who  have 
beautiful  things  about  them,  and  leisure  to  look  at  them." 
— Ruskin. 

Casual  readers  of  Ruskin  have  been  puzzled  to 
account  for  his  apostacy  from  art  to  political  econ- 
omy. How  was  it,  they  ask,  that  one  who  could  write 
eloquent  rhapsodies  about  clouds  and  skies,  about 
flowers  and  trees  and  mountains  and  all  manner  of 
living  things,  who  could  translate  the  golden  visions 
of  Turner  into  language  that  can  only  be  compared 
with  Shelley's  in  its  ethereal  splendor,  whose  ex- 
traordinarily sensitive  nature  was  habitually  thrilled 
by  the  glories  of  form  and  color  alike  in  the  world  of 
nature  and  the  world  of  art, — how  was  it  that  a 
writer  with  magic  like  this  at  his  command  should 
torment  his  spirit  with  thoughts  of  competition  and 
co-operation,  profit  and  loss,  production,  distribution, 
consumption,  and  all  the  dull  lingo  of  the  world  of 
Industry  and  commerce?  Contemporaries  of  Ruskin 
were  likewise  puzzled  over  this  question,  and  they 
turned  upon  him  in  derision  and  contempt,  as  we 
have  seen.    But  a  careful  study  of  his  work  reveals  a 

149 


^ 


ISO  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

unity  of  purpose  underneath  a  wide  diversity  of 
interests.  In  spite  of  the  digressions — and  they  are 
legion — there  is  one  principal  aim  in  his  voluminous 
^  writings,  from  Modern  Painters  to  Fors^  and  it  is  this: 
',  that(«ound  art,  whether  individual  or  national,  is  the 
^  expression  of  a  sound  life  and  depends  for  its  noble- 
,/  ness  and  truth  upon  a  noble  spirit  in  the  artist  or  in 
the  age;  and,  further,  that  art,  so  understood,  is  not 
\  possible  when  it  is  thought  of  as  a  mere  luxury 
created  by  a  few  highly  gifted  and  highly  paid  vir- 
tuosos for  the  enjoyment  of  an  aristocratic  order 
alone,  but  only  when  it  is  jconceived  as  the  creative 
expression  of  a  people,  working,  from  humblest  crafts- 
man up  to  master  artist,  in  response  to  impulses 
that  spring  from  a  happj-  and  healthy  community  life. 
In  his  inaugural  lecture  at  Oxford  which  he  delivered 
in  1870  as  the  first  professor  of  fine  arts,  Ruskin 
summarized  his  teaching  in  the  following  words: 
i^the  most  perfect  mental  culture  possible  to  men  is 
founded  on  their  useful  energies,  and  their  best  arts 
and  brightest  happiness  are  consistent,  and  consistent 
only,  with  their  virtue."  It  is  necessary,  he  said,  to 
find  "in  the  laws  which  regulate  the  finest  industries, 
the  clue  to  the  laws  which  regulate  all  industries.  .  .  . 
The  art  of  any  country  is  the  exponent  of  its  social  and 
political  virtues.^'  This,  he  explained  to  his  audience, 
"is  what  I  chiefly  have  to  say  to  you, — one  of  the 
things,  and  the  most  important  of  all  things,  I  can 
positively  declare  to  you."^  His  doctrine  of  art  is 
thus  the  root  from  which  grew  his  social  and  economic 
ideals.    Industry  was  inseparably  connected  with  art 

1  Works,  XX,  39-40. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    151 

in  all  his  thinking.     A  brief  analysis  will  make  this 
clear. 

Ruskin  defined  the  art  of  man  as  "  the  expression 
of  his  rational  and  disciplined  delight  in  the  forms  and 
laws  of  the  creation  of  which  he  forms  a  part."  Art 
is  man's  sense  of  beauty  awakened  and  made  creative. 
But  what  is  beauty?  Beauty,  said  Ruskin,  is  a 
special  kind  of  pleasure  communicated  to  man  from 
the  outer  world,  perceived  first  by  the  physical  senses 
and  then  by  the  moral  sense,  or  heart.  "Any  ma- 
terial object  which  can  give  us  pleasure  in  the  simple 
contemplation  of  its  outward  qualities  without  any 
direct  or  definite  exertion  of  the  intellect,  I  call  in 
some  way,  or  in  some  degree,  beautiful."  ^  This  is 
sensuous  beauty,  or  "that  quality  or  group  of  quali- 
ties in  objects  by  which  they  become  pleasant  to  the 
eye  considered  merely  as  a  sense.  Pure  and  vivid 
colors,  for  instance,  are  to  the  eye  precisely  what 
musical  sounds  are  to  the  ear,  capable  of  intense 
expression,  but  also  pleasant  in  themselves,  and 
although  wearisome  if  too  long  continued,  possessing 
for  a  time  a  real  charm,  of  which  no  account  whatever 
can  be  rendered,  but  that  the  bodily  sense  is  therein 
gratified.  This  is  the  first  notion  of  beauty  in  the 
human  mind."  ^  But  Ruskin  did  not  stop  here.  He 
held  that  there  is  in  material  things  a  quality  which 
conveys  an  idea  of  immaterial  ones,  that,  for  example, 
bright  distance,  curvature,  or  color  gradation,  is  a 
type  or  reflection  of  infinity  in  the  divine  mind,  just 
as  material  purity  is  a  type  of  divine  energy.  This 
quality,  which  is  essential  to  a  complete  notion  of 

'  fVorks,  III,   109.  2  Ibid.,   IV,   365. 


152  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

beauty,  can  be  fully  apprehended  only  by  the  moral 
nature,  or  heart,  "in  its  purity  and  perfection."  ^  "As 
it  is  necessary  to  the  existence  of  an  idea  of  beauty," 
said  Ruskin,  "that  the  sensual  pleasure  which  may 
be  its  basis  should  be  accompanied  first  with  joy, 
then  with  love  of  the  object,  then  with  the  perception 
^  of  kindness  in  a  superior  intelligence,  finally,  with 
thankfulness  and  veneration  towards  that  intelligence 
itself;  and  as  no  idea  can  be  at  all  considered  in  any 
way  an  idea  of  beauty,  until  it  be  made  up  of  these 
emotions,  any  more  than  we  can  be  said  to  have  an 
idea  of  a  letter  of  which  we  perceive  the  perfume  and 
the  fair  writing,  without  understanding  the  contents 
of  it;  and  as  these  emotions  are  in  no  way  resultant 
from,  or  obtainable  by,  any  operation  of  the  Intellect; 

^  Ruskin  regarded  this  "moral"  aspect  of  beauty  as  the  central  feature 
of  his  theory  of  aesthetics,  and  to  distinguish  the  faculty  by  which  it  is 
received  from  the  merely  sensuous  nature  of  man,  he  took  a  hint  from 
Aristotle  and  called  it  "theoretic."  Theoria  in  Aristotle's  Ethics  means 
contemplation;  and  from  this  work  Ruskin  quotes  a  passage  which,  he 
says,  "seems  to  have  suggested  the  whole  idea  of  my  own  essay"  (j.  <■., 
Volume  II  of  Modern  Painters),  and  which  he  translated  as  follows: 
"And  perfect  happiness  is  some  sort  of  energy  of  Contemplation,  for  all 
the  life  of  the  gods  is  (therein)  glad;  and  that  of  men,  glad  in  the  degree  in 
which  some  likeness  to  the  gods  in  this  energy  belongs  to  them.  For  none 
other  of  living  creatures  (but  men  only)  can  be  happy,  since  in  no  way  can 
they  have  any  part  in  Contemplation."  {Works,  IV,  7.)  Thirty  years 
after  the  publication  of  the  second  volume  of  Modern  Painters,  in  an 
unused  letter  written  for  Fors  from  Italy,  he  wrote:  "Among  the  points 
of  true  value  in  the  first  and  second  volumes  of  Modern  Painters,  none  were 
more  vital  than  the  distinction  made  between  ordinary  sight,  and  what — 
there  being  no  English  word  for  it — I  was  forced  to  call  by  the  Greek  one 
'  Theoria,'  '  Contemplation' — seeing  within  the  temple  of  the  heart.  .  .  . 
If  you  will  look  back  to  the  chapters  in  Theoria  in  Modern  Painters,  you 
will  see  that  the  entire  difference  between  the  human  sight  of  beauty  and 
the  animal  scorn  of  it  is  shown  to  consist,  in  this  concurrence,  with 
physical  sense,  of  Mental  Religion.  I  use  the  word  in  its  true 
meaning — the  acknowledgment  of  Spiritual  Power."  {fVorks,  XXIX, 
57S-7-) 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    153 

it  is  evident  that  the  sensation  of  beauty  is  not  sen- 
sual on  the  one  hand,  nor  is  it  intellectual  on  the 
other,  but  is  dependent  on  a  pure,  right,  and  open 
state  of  the  heart."  ^  In  the  light  of  this  account, 
beauty  is  not  a  mere  pleasurable  sensation  of  the  eye 
or  ear;  it  is  rather  a  passionate  and  reverent  joy  ex- 
cited in  a  pure  mind  by  its  contemplation  of  the  ex- 
ternal world  of  man  and  nature.  It  cannot  be  felt  by 
mean  and  low  spirits,  nor  by  highly  refined  spirits  in 
mean  and  low  moments.  "  So  much  as  there  is  in  you 
of  ox,  or  swine,"  said  Ruskin,  "perceives  no  beauty, 
and  creates  none:  what  i^  human  in  you,  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  perfection  of  its  humanity,  can 
create  it,  and  receive."  ^  ''Yes,"  we  say,  *'but  what 
of  the  licentious  artists  who  are  at  once  gifted  and 
debased  and  who  can  yet  create  beautiful  things? 
How  absurd  to  contend  that  beauty  depends  upon 
morality!"  Beauty,  which  is  a  good  thing,  Ruskin 
would  reply,  cannot  come  from  vileness,  which  is  an 
evil  thing.  "A  bad  woman  may  have  a  sweet  voice; 
but  that  sweetness  of  voice  comes  of  the  past  morality 
of  her  race.  ...  A  maiden  may  sing  of  her  lost  love, 
but  a  miser  cannot  sing  of  his  lost  money.  And  with\ 
absolute  precision,  from  highest  to  lowest,  the  fineness 
of  the  possible  art  is  an  index  of  the  moral  purity  and 
majesty  of  the  emotion  it  expresses.  .  .  .  All  aesthetics 
depend  on  the  health  of  soul  and  body,  and  the  proper 
exercise  of  both,  not  only  through  years,  but  genera- 

1  Works,  IV,  48.  By  sayiriR  that  the  perception  of  beauty  is  not  an 
intellectual  activity,  Ruskin  means  that  such  perception  does  not  depend 
upon  the  combining  powers  of  the  imagination  or  the  analytic  powers  of 
the  reason. 

2  Ibid.,  XX,  209. 


154  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

tions.  Only  by  harmony  of  both  collateral  and  suc- 
cessive lives  can  the  great  doctrine  of  the  Muses  be 
received  which  enables  men  \eipeLv  6pda><i\  *  to  have 
pleasure  rightly.'  "  ^ 

The  full  perception  of  beauty  is  thus  conditioned 
upon  a  sound  state  of  man's  moral  nature.  And  the 
primal  source  of  greatness  in  art  is  accordingly  the 

^  Works  XIX,  393;  XX,  74,  208.  It  would  be  possible  to  quote  scores 
of  passages  from  Ruskin  in  illustration  of  this  fundamental  dogma.  His 
ethical  interpretation  of  beauty  no  doubt  owes  much  to  his  personal 
experience.  The  world  of  nature  to  Ruskin  as  to  Wordsworth  was  appar- 
elled In  celestial  light.  His  first  sight  of  the  Alps  was  like  a  direct  revela- 
tion of  heaven.  In  the  midst  of  mountain  solitudes,  his  soul  was  elevated 
to  a  solemn  ecstasy  and  the  very  atmosphere  seemed  to  thrill  with  the 
spirit  of  God.  "I  never  climbed  any  mountain,  alone,"  he  said,  "without 
kneeling  down,  by  instinct,  on  its  summit  to  pray."  {Works,  IV,  350.) 
"Whatever  might  be  my  common  faults  or  weaknesses,  they  were  rebuked 
among  the  hills;  and  the  only  days  I  can  look  back  to  as,  according  to 
the  powers  given  me,  rightly  or  wisely,  in  entireness  spent,  have  been  in 
sight  of  Mont  Blanc,  Monte  Rosa,  or  the  Jungfrau."  {Works,  XXXV,  474. 
Cf.  Tolstoi's  experience  on  seeing  the  Caucasus  mountains  for  the  first 
time,  as  described  in  the  second  chapter  of  his  Cossacks.)  Ruskin  believea 
that  the  "color  in  the  sky,  the  trees,  flowers,  and  colored  creatures  round 
us,  and  in  our  own  various  arts  massed  under  the  one  name  of  painting 
(has)  a  directly  ethical  influence"  upon  man,  if  he  will  give /i/wij-^// up  to  its 
appeals.  "Color  .  .  .  is  the  purifying  or  sanctifying  element  of  material 
beauty  ...  It  is  just  as  divine  and  distinct  in  its  power  as  music,"  and 
"more  than  all  elements  of  art,  the  reward  of  veracity  of  purpose.  .  .  . 
It  is  with  still  greater  interest  and  reverence  to  be  noted  as  a  physical 
truth  that  in  states  of  joyful  and  healthy  excitement  the  eye  becomes 
more  highly  sensitive  to  the  beauty  of  color,  and  especially  to  the  blue 
and  red  rays,  while  in  depression  and  disease  all  color  becomes  dim  to  us, 
and  the  yellow  rays  prevail  over  the  rest,  even  to  the  extremity  of  jaun- 
dice." The  "love  of  beauty  is  an  essential  part  of  all  human  nature,  and 
though  it  can  long  co-exist  with  states  of  life  in  many  other  respects 
unvirtuous,  it  is  in  itself  wholly  good; — the  direct  adversary  of  envy, 
avarice,  mean  wordly  care,  and  especially  of  cruelty.  It  entirely  perishes 
when  these  are  wilfully  indulged.  .  .  .  In  the  worst  condition  of  sensual- 
ity there  is  yet  some  perception  of  the  beautiful,  so  that  man  utterly 
depraved  in  principle  and  habits  of  thought,  will  yet  admire  beautiful 
things,  and  fair  faces."  {Works,  XX,  210;  VII,  4l7n.;  XI,  218;  VII, 
4i8n;    XXXIII,  386;  XX,  90;  IV,  320.) 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    155 

soul  of  the  artist.  Great  art  is  a  noble  spirit  in  the 
artist  communicated  to  his  material.  Not  in  tech- 
nique alone,  not  in  a  way  of  handling  details,  not  in 
the  facts  of  nature  considered  by  themselves,  indis- 
pensable as  all  these  are,  is  to  be  found  the  secret  of 
greatness  in  art.  "Great  art,"  Ruskin  said,  "is 
produced  by  men  who  feel  acutely  and  nobly.  .  .  . 
Great  art  is  precisely  that  which  never  was,  nor  will 
be  taught;  it  is  pre-eminently  and  finally  the  expres- 
sion of  the  spirits  of  great  men."  '  An  accomplished 
technician  may  paint  with  perfect  accuracy  a  group  of 
gamblers  in  their  den,  but  no  one  but  a  truly  refined 
artist  will  render  the  beauty  of  a  fair  countenance 
or  the  glory  of  an  evening  sky;  for  while  a  mean 
intellect  will  be  occupied  with  mean  objects,  only  a 
noble  nature  will  correctly  interpret  noble  objects. 
Objects,  moreover,  are  not  represented  in  the  form 
of  pure  transcript  from  nature.  "They  invariably 
receive  the  reflection  of  the  mind  under  whose 
shadow  they  have  passed,  and  are  modified  or  colored 
by  its  image." 

These  most  Ruskinian  of  Ruskin's  dogmas  on  art 
have  been  much  misunderstood,  and  much  ridiculed 
as  the  enthusiasms  of  a  pious  sentimentalist,  who 
talked  about  pictures  in  the  spirit  of  the  preacher 
rather  than  of  the  critic.  But  Ruskin  never  advanced 
the  fatuous  notion  that  an  ignoramus  could  be  an 
artist  merely  because  he  might  happen  to  be  virtuous; 
nor  did  he  confound  a  large  and  noble  morality  with  a 
narrow  and  orthodox  piety.  No  one  could  rate  en- 
dowment higher  than  he.     "Great  men,"  he  said, 

»  fForks,  II,  32,  69. 


is6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

"always  understand  at  once  that  the  first  morality  of 
a  painter,  as  of  everybody  else,  is  to  know  his  busi- 
ness. .  .  .  Art-gift  and  amiability  of  disposition  are 
two  different  things;  a  good  man  is  not  necessarily  a 
painter,  nor  does  an  eye  for  color  necessarily  imply  an 
honest  mind.  But  great  art  implies  the  union  of  both 
powers:  it  is  the  expression,  by  an  art-gift,  of  a  pure 
soul.  If  the  gift  is  not  there,  we  have  no  art  at  all; 
and  if  the  soul — and  a  right  soul  too — is  not  there,  the 
art  is  bad,  however  dexterous."  ^  ^  Goodness,  it  is  to  be 
noted,  is  nearly  always  identified  by  Ruskin  with 
manhood,  with  a  man's  full  humanity,  and  implies  no 
particular  creed  or  practice  in  religion  or  morals. 
"All  art  is  great,  and  good,  and  true,"  he  said,  "only 
so  far  as  it  is  distinctively  the  work  of  manhood  in  its 
entire  and  highest  sense.  .  .  .  All  great  art  is  the 
work  of  the  whole  living  creature,  body  and  soul,  and 
chiefly  of  the  soul."  An  artist's  greatness,  he  said 
further,  in  a  striking  passage,  "is  in  his  choice  of 
things,  in  his  analysis  of  them,  and  his  combining 
powers  involve  the  totality  of  his  knowledge  in  life.  His 
methods  of  observation  and  abstraction  are  essential 
habits  of  his  thought^  conditions  of  his  being.''  ^ 

These  laws,  interpreting  the  relation  between  art 
and  its  creator,  are  just  as  true  for  the  nation  or  the 
race,  as  for  the  individual.  A  national  art  is  an 
accurate  expression  of  the  life  and  temper  of  the 
nation  that  produced  it.  Ffom  the  least  to  the  great- 
est, the  arts  spring  from  the  whole  humanity,  debased 

^  Works,  XX,  8i;  XIX,  392.  Ruskin's  position  is  stated  many  times 
over.  Cf.  XV,  416.  The  whole  matter  is  most  clearly  and  eloquently  set 
forth  in  a  long  passage,  from  which  the  second  quotation  above  is  taken. 

*  Ibid.,  XI,  201,  212;  XIX,  34.    The  italics  are  mine. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    157 

by  its  vices,  elevated  by  its  virtues.  "The  art  of  a 
nation,"  said  Ruskin,  "much  resembles  the  corolla  of 
a  flower;  its  brightness  of  color  is  dependent  on  the 
general  health  of  the  plant,  and  you  can  only  com- 
mand the  hue,  or  modify  the  form  of  the  blossom,  by 
medicine  or  nourishment  applied  patiently  to  the 
root,  not  by  manipulation  of  the  petals."  ^  The 
characteristics  of  a  people,  he  contended,  are  written 
more  legibly  in  its  art  than  in  any  other  expression  of 
its  activity.  "You  may  read  the  characters  of  men, 
and  of  nations,  in  their  art,  as  in  a  mirror.  .  .  .  The 
higher  arts,  which  involve  the  action  of  the  whole 
intellect,  tell  the  story  of  the  entire  national  char- 
acter." 2  Find  on  the  map  of  the  world  or  in  the^his- 
tory  of  the  past  a  nation  famous  for  its  humanity  as 
well  as  for  its  love  of  beauty,  and  if  it  has  produced 
art  at  all,  that  art  is  a  reflection  of  its  national  char- 
acteristics no  less  distinctly  than  the  sculptures  of 
Michael  Angelo  are  a  reflection  of  his  superb  power 
and  dignity  as  a  man.  Wherever  Ruskin  turned  to 
study  the  art  of  a  people,  he  accordingly  found  an 
authentic  record  of  its  temper:  he  found  written  in 
stone  or  upon  canvas  the  soldiership  of  early  Greece, 
the  sensuality  of  late  Italy,  the  visionary  religion  of 
Tuscany,  and  the  splendid  human  energy  of  Venice; 
for  "all  good  art  is  the  natural  utterance  of  its  own 
people  in  its  own  day."  ^ 

The  fullest  expression  of  this  principle  that  Ruskin 
found  was  architecture, — "the  beginning  of  arts" 
and  "pre-eminently  the  art  of  the  multitude,"  ^  not 

»  fForks,  XIX,  197.  » Ibid.,  XIX,  418. 

^Ibid.,  XIX,  389;  250.  *  Ibid.,  VIII,  2ss;  XI,  iiS. 


1 58  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

only  in  its  influence  upon  people  in  their  daily  life  and 
interests,  but  as  an  expression  of  their  common 
creative  energy.  In  their  buildings,  domestic,  civil, 
or  ecclesiastical,  they  give  visible  evidence  of  their 
national  spirit,  their  love  of  home,  their  civic  pride, 
their  religious  aspiration.  Unlike  paintings  or  pieces 
of  statuary,  architecture  cannot  be  withdrawn  into 
the  privacy  of  palace  or  mansion  for  the  enjoyment  of 
the  few;  and  so,  more  richly  than  any  other  form  of 
art,  it  expresses  "to  all  the  world  the  taste,  and  there- 
fore the  character,  of  the  people  by  whom  it  has  been 
created."  Ruskin's  two  books  on  architecture  were 
written  with  no  other  purpose  than  to  set  forth  the 
closeness  of  relation  between  architecture  and  the 
spirit  of  the  people  that  produced  it.  "The  book  I 
called  The  Seven  Lamps  was  to  show  that  certain 
right  states  of  temper  and  moral  feeling  were  the 
magic  powers  by  which  all  good  architecture,  without 
exception,  has  been  produced.  The  Stones  of  Venice 
had,  from  beginning  to  end,  no  other  aim  than  to 
show  that  the  Gothic  architecture  of  Venice  had 
arisen  out  of,  and  indicated  in  all  its  features,  a  state 
of  pure  national  faith,  and  of  domestic  virtue;  and 
that  its  Renaissance  architecture  had  arisen  out  of, 
and  in  all  its  features  indicated,  a  state  of  concealed 
national  infidelity,  and  of  domestic  corruption."  ^ 
Every  national  architecture  that  he  saw  or  studied 
was  to  Ruskin  an  illustration  of  the  principles  thus 
clearly  stated.  The  spirit  of  the  Roman  people  was 
revealed  in  "the  magnificent  vaultings  of  the  aque- 
duct and  bath,  and  the  colossal  heaping  of  the  rough 

^  Works,   XVIII,   443. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    150 

stones  in  the  arches  of  the  amphitheatre;  an  archl 
tecture  full  of  expression  of  gigantic  power  and 
strength  of  will."  In  the  "extravagant  foliation  and 
exquisite  refinement"  of  his  pointed  arches  the  Arab 
displayed  unmistakably  his  intense  love  of  excite- 
ment and  his  supple  energy;  just  as  the  Lombard  and 
the  Norman  gave  evidence  of  their  "savage  but  noble 
life  gradually  subjected  to  law"  in  the  round  arches 
and  massive  pillars  of  their  buildings,  ornamented 
with  "endless  imagery  of  active  life  and  fantastic 
superstitions."  Most  expressive  of  all,  because  most 
truly  and  widely  national,  was  Gothic  architecture, 
the  style  that  Ruskin  loved  best.  In  this  "magnifi- 
cently human"  art,  especially  in  the  northern  Gothic 
of  France  and  England,  he  found  the  noble  character- 
istics of  multitudes  of  unnamed  workmen  legibly 
written  upon  the  stones  which  they  had  shaped  into 
infinite  variations  of  pointed  arch,  grouped  shaft,  or 
intricate  tracery.  Here  were  visibly  recorded  their 
independence,  fortitude,  resolution,  impatience,  free- 
dom, habitual  tenderness,  enthusiasm,  and  profound 
sympathy  with  the  wealth  of  beauty  in  the  material 
world.  Gothic,  too,  was  a  democratic  architecture^ 
created  not  for  knights  and  nobles,  nor  for  baronial 
halls  and  sanctuaries,  alone,  but  for  the  people,  for 
their  houses,  their  shops,  and  their  places  of  com- 
merce; it  was  good  for  all,  enjoyed  by  all,  and  "had 
fellowship  with  all  hearts,  and  was  universal  like 
nature."  Then,  because  the  people  became  money- 
loving  and  faithless,  because  they  no  longer  delighted 
in'art  except  as  a  minister  to  their  pride  and  luxury, 
there  grew  up  in  Europe  another  architecture,  called 


i6o  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  Renaissance.  This,  just  as  accurately  as  the 
Gothic,  was  a  witness  of  the  character  of  its  creators. 
It  was  aristocratic  and  cold,  a  type  of  building  made 
for  men  of  intellect  and  position,  "for  the  academy 
and  the  court; — princes  delighted  in  it,  and  cour- 
tiers." More  and  more  it  served  the  uses  and  the 
interests  of  an  aristocratic  society,  until  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  it  became 
associated  with  "the  terraced  and  scented  and  grot- 
toed  garden,  with  its  trickling  fountains  and  slum- 
brous shades,"  attaining  "its  utmost  height"  in  the 
palace  of  Versailles,  the  perfect  symbol  of  a  haughty 
and  degenerate  nobility. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  Ruskin  found  in  architecture 
the  best  possible  illustration  of  his  doctrine  that  the 
art  of  a  nation  is  the  exponent  of  its  social  and 
political  life,  and  that  a  noble  architecture,  such  as 
the  Gothic,  sprang  from  a  sound  and  noble  national 
existence.  But  his  study  of  Gothic  revealed  to  him 
many  supplementary  lessons  concerning  the  relation 
of  art  to  society,  which  he  held  and  advocated  with 
increasing  conviction  as  he  grew  older.  It  taught  him 
that  to  be  truly  great  an  art  must  be  the  flowering  of 
the  creative  effort  of  a  whole  people.  Such  an  art 
must  be  the  product  of  many  noble  artists,  small  as 
well  as  great,  guided  by  a  universal  style,  and  work- 
ing together  towards  certain  large  common  ends.^ 
Gothic  taught  him,  further,  that  a  fully  nationalized 

'  "The  very  essence  of  a  Style,  properly  so" called,  is  that  it  should  be 
practised /or  ag^-j,  and  applied  to  all  purposes;  and  that  so  long  as  any 
given  style  is  in  practice,  all  that  is  left  for  individual  imagination  to 
accomplish  must  be  within  the  scope  of  that  style,  not  in  the  invention  of 
a  new  one."    {Works,  XVI,  349.) 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    i6i 

art  comes  only  when  the  enjoyment  of  it  is  universal, 
and  when  the  people  who  create  it  are  living  happily 
in  an  ordered  and  beautiful  environment.  "There  is 
no  way  of  getting  good  art,"  he  said,  "but  one — at 
ooee,  the  simplest  and  most  difficult — to  enjoy  it." 
(Ruskin  did  not  believe  in  an  art  that  was  aristocratic 
and  therefore  exclusive,  that  was  individual  and 
--^therefore  eccentric.  "In  all  base  schools  of  Art,"  he 
said,  "the  craftsman  is  dependent  for  his  bread  on 
originality;  that  is  to  say,  on  finding  in  himself  some 
fragment  of  isolated  faculty,  by  which  his  work  may 
be  recognized  as  different  from  that  of  other  men.  .  . 
In  all  great  schools  of  ai;t  these  conditions  are  exactly 
reversed.  An  artist  is  praised  in  these,  not  for  what 
is  different  from  him  in  others,  nor  for  solitary  per- 
formance of  singular  work;  but  only  for  doing  most 
strongly  what  all  are  endeavoring;  and  for  contribut- 
ing, in  the  measure  of  his  strength,  to  some  great 
achievement,  to  be  completed  by  the  unity  of  multi- 
tudes, and  the  sequence  of  ages."  ^  Ruskin  was  en- 
gaged all  his  life,  to  use  his  own  words,  "in  an  ardent 
endeavor  to  spread  the  love  and  knowledge  of  art 
among  all  classes.  .  .  .  The  end  of  my  whole  Pro- 
fessorship," he  said,  when  speaking  of  his  work  as 
Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Arts  at  Oxford,  "would  be 
accomplished, — and  far  more  than  that, — if  only 
the  English  nation  could  be  made  to  understand  that 
the  beauty  which  is  indeed  to  be  a  joy  forever,  must 
be  a  joy  for  «//."  ^ 

>  Works,  III,  66s;  XXII,  212.  Cf.  "Not  only  sculpture,  but  all  the 
other  fine  arts,  must  be  for  all  the  people."  (XX,  299.)  "All  great  art 
must  be  popular."    (XXII,  317.) 

«  Ibid.  XXII,  145. 


i62  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

But,  in  keeping  with  Ruskin's  belief  in  the  depend- 
ence of  sound  art  upon  sound  life,  his  demand  for  an 
art  widely  diffused  over  the  whole  of  society  im- 
poses tremendous  claims  upon  the  people  who  are  to 
create  it.  They  must  first  create  beauty  of  surround- 
ings and  beauty  of  life.  "Design  is  not  the  offspring 
of  idle  fancy,"  said  Ruskin,  in  one  of  his  clearest 
utterances  on  this  point;  "it  is  the  studied  result 
of  accumulative  observation  and  delightful  habit. 
Without  observation  and  experience,  no  design — 
without  peace  and  pleasurableness  in  occupation,  no 
design — and  all  the  lecturings,  and  teachings,  and 
prizes,  and  principles  of  art,  in  the  world,  are  of  no 
use,  so  long  as  you  don't  surround  your  men  with 
happy  influences  and  beautiful  things.  It  is  impossible 
for  them  to  have  right  ideas  about  color,  unless  they 
see  lovely  colors  in  nature  unspoiled;  impossible  for 
them  to  supply  beautiful  incident  and  action  in  their 
ornament,  unless  they  see  beautiful  incident  and 
action  in  the  world  about  them.  Inform  their  minds, 
refine  their  habits,  and  you  form  and  refine  their 
designs.  .  .  .  The  elements  of  character  necessary 
for  the  production  of  true  formative  art  will  be,  first, 
brightness  of  physical  life,  and  the  manly  virtues 
belonging  to  it;  then  the  broad  scope  of  reflection  and 
purpose;  then  the  distinctive  gift  of  imagination;  the 
innocent  perception  of  beauty;  to  crown  all,  the  per- 
fect peace  of  an  honest  and  living  faith.  All  this  is 
needed  in  the  nature  of  the  artist  himself;  and  yet  it  is 
not  enough.  Endowed  with  all  these  attributes,  or  at 
least  capable  of  them,  he  may  still  be  made  helpless 
by  the  lower  conditions  of  persons  and  things  around 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    163 

him.  For  it  is  necessary  to  his  healthy  energy  that 
his  subject  should  always  be  greater  than  himself. 
He  must  not  stoop  to  it,  but  be  exalted  by  it,  and 
paint  it  with  full  strain  of  his  force  looking  upward. 
It  is  fatal  to  his  strength,  to  his  honor,  if  he  is  always 
raising  mean  things  and  gilding  defiled.  He  has 
always  the  privilege,  is  often  under  the  necessity,  of 
modifying,  or  choosing,  or  contracting  his  subject, 
within  assigned  limitations  of  manners;  but  he  must 
always  feel  that  the  whole,  out  of  which  he  has 
chosen,  could  he  have  rendered  it,  was  greater  and 
more  beautiful  than  the  part  he  chose,  and  that  the 
free  fact  was  greater  than  his  formalism.  And  there- 
fore it  is  necessary  that  the  living  men  round  him 
should  be  in  an  ethical  state  harmonious  with  his  own, 
and  that  there  should  be  no  continual  discord  nor 
dishonor  standing  between  him  and  the  external 
world.  And  thus  a  lovely  and  ordered  unity  of  civil 
life  is  necessary  to  fulfil  the  power  of  the  men  who  are 
raised  above  its  level;  such  unity  of  life  as  expresses 
itself  palpably  and  always  in  the  states  capable  of 
formative  design  by  their  consenting  adaptation  of  a 
common  style  of  architecture  for  their  buildings,  and 
of  more  or  less  fixed  standards  of  form  in  domestic 
furniture  and  in  dress.  .  .  .  We  shall  never  make 
our  houses  for  the  rich  beautiful,  till  we  have  begun 
by  making  our  houses  for  the  poor  beautiful.  As  it  is 
a  common  and  diflTused  pride,  so  it  is  a  common  and 
diffused  delight  on  which  alone  our  future  arts  can  be 
founded."  ' 

Common  and  diffused  delights!    Beautiful  objects 

\  1  fTorks,  XVI,  341;  XIX,  184,  266. 


i64  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

and  beautiful  incidents!  A  lovely  and  ordered  unity 
of  civil  life!  Artists  with  happy  human  creatures 
round  them  in  an  ethical  state  harmonious  with  their 
own !  Ruskin's  study  of  art  had  indeed  led  him  far. 
Passionate  lover  of  the  beautiful,  passionate  believer 
in  the  dependence  of  beauty  upon  a  right  state  of  the 
heart,  passionate  prophet  of  the  contented  craftsman- 
ship that  once  throve  in  medieval  communities  of 
cathedral  builders,  he  clung  with  his  whole  intense 
nature  to  the  faith  that  art  in  its  highest  and  health- 
iest form  could  flourish  only  when  happiness  was  the 
possession  not  of  the  few,  but  of  the  many,  the  posses- 
sion of  a  people  living  well-ordered  lives  in  a  beautiful 
environment.  His  first  sight  of  the  Alps  and  of 
Italian  cities  had  come  to  him  before  the.  advent  of 
modern  industrialism,  when  the  skies  were  unsullied 
with  smoke-clouds  and  the  marbles  of  Venice  and 
Verona  yet  shone  with  something  of  their  ancient 
luster,  unspoiled  by  the  hand  of  the  restorer.  In- 
spired poet  rather  than  sober  rationalist,  he  had  seen 
the  splendors  of  nature  and  of  art  before  his  eyes  were 
troubled  with  the  new  order  springing  up  about  him. 
He  had  grown  accustomed  to  regard  beauty,  which 
was  to  him  a  revelation  of  the  glory  and  goodness  of 
God  and  which  therefore  was  fully  unveiled  only  to 
the  pure  in  heart,  as  the  symbol  of  a  peaceful  and 
contented  society  in  the  pa'^t,  and  as  the  promise 
of  a  noble  fellowship  of  men  in  the  future.  With 
a  mind  full  of  such  visions  and  faiths,  with  a 
heart  inflamed  with  hope,  buoyant  and  sensitive 
as  a  poet,  he  now  turned  to  look  upon  the  mod- 
ern world   that    had   grown    up   as   if   by  miracle 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    165 

while  he  was  absorbed  in  following  the  footprints  of 
Turner. 

What  Ruskin  saw  was  a  sight  familiar  enough  to- 
day but  wholly  new  to  him,  a  sight  that  filled  him 
with  horror.  He  saw  that  however  eloquently  the 
heavens  might  declare  the  glory  of  God,  the  cities  of 
men  and  their  habitations  were  now  subject  to 
another  power,  the  demon  of  disorder  and  ugliness,  of 
grime  and  squalor  and  noise.  "The  vastness  of  the 
horror  of  this  world's  blindness  and  misery  opens 
upon  me,"  he  wrote  to  C.  E.  Norton  in  1862  from  the 
little  Alpine  village  of  Mornex,  where  he  was  writing 
the  essays  that  afterwards  appeared  as  Munera  Pul- 
veris.  The  ugliness  of  this  new  era,  which  took 
beauty  from  the  sky  and  clearness  from  the  streams 
and  which  spread  dreary  acres  of  monotonous  dwel- 
lings over  the  faces  of  cities,  he  described  in  his  later 
books  with  the  fierceness  of  Swift  and  the  atrabil- 
iar  exaggeration  of  Carlyle,  without,  alas,  Carlyle's 
Teufelsdrochkian  humor.  The  language  that  he 
sometimes  employed  reminds  one  in  its  uncontrolled 
intensity  and  extravagance  of  the  speech  of  Milton 
or  Burke,  in  moments  when  their  wrath  overcame 
their  reason.  For  Ruskin  wrote,  as  he  expressed  it, 
with  "a  sense  of  indignation  which  burns  in  me  con- 
tinually, for  all  that  men  are  doing  and  suffering." 
He  wrote,  too,  with  a  discontent  which  he  likened  to 
that  of  Dante  and  Virgil.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the 
peace  and  beauty,  "the  integrity  and  simplicity,"  of 
an  older  order  was  being  trampled  down  by  a  people 
who  lived  in  tenements  instead  of  homes,  and  who 
substituted   "mechanism    for   skill,   photograph    for 


i66  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

picture,  cast-iron  for  sculpture."  After  a  long  drive 
through  the  midland  manufacturing  districts  of 
England,  he  wrote:  "The  two  most  frightful  things 
I  have  ever  yet  seen  in  my  life  are  the  southeastern 
suburb  of  Bradford  (six  miles  long),  and  the  scene 
from  Wakefield  bridge,  by  the  chapel."  ^  Could 
beauty  live  in  a  pestilence  like  this?  "I  know  per- 
fectly," he  said,  "that  to  the  general  people,  trained 
in  the  midst  of  the  ugliest  objects  that  vice  can  de- 
sign, in  houses,  mills,  and  machinery,  all  beautiful 
form  and  color  is  as  invisible  as  the  seventh  heaven. 
...  In  literal  and  fatal  instance  of  fact — think  what 
ruin  it  is  for  men  of  any  sensitive  faculty  to  live  in 
such  a  city  as  London  is  now!  Take  the  highest 
and  lowest  state  of  it:  you  have,  typically,  Grosvenor 
Square, — an  aggregation  of  bricks  and  railings,  with 
not  so  much  architectural  faculty  expressed  in  the 
whole  cumber  of  them  as  there  is  in  a  wasp's  nest  or  a 
worm-hole; — and  you  have  the  rows  of  houses  which 
you  look  down  into  on  the  south  side  of  the  South- 
western line,  between  Vauxhall  and  Clapham  Junc- 
tion. Between  these  two  ideals  the  London  artist 
must  seek  his  own;  and  in  the  humanity,  or  the  ver- 
min, of  them,  worship  the  aristocratic  and  scientific 
gods  of  living  Israel.  ...  Is  this  verily  the  end  at 
which  we  aim,  and  will  the  mission  of  the  age  have 
been  then  only  accomplished,  when  the  last  castle 
has  fallen  from  our  rocks,  the  last  cloisters  faded  from 
our  valleys,  the  last  streets,  in  which  the  dead  have 
dwelt,  been  effaced  from  our  cities,  and  regenerated 
society  is  left  in  luxurious  possession  of  towns  com- 

1  Works,  XXVIII,  267. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    167 

posed  only  of  bright  saloons,  overlooking  gay  par- 
terres? .  .  .  Must  this  little  Europe — this  corner  of 
our  globe,  gilded  with  the  blood  of  old  battles,  and 
gray  with  the  temples  of  all  pieties — this  narrow 
piece  of  the  world's  pavement,  worn  down  by  so 
many  pilgrims'  feet,  be  utterly  swept  and  garnished 
for  the  masque  of  the  future?"^  Readers  familiar 
with  his  later  writings  know  how  repeatedly  Ruskin 
drew  these  graphic  pictures,  for  he  could  not  dismiss 
from  his  mind  these  scenes  of  a  newer  world  which  his 
acute  sensibilities  were  constantly  impressing  upon  it 
and  which  contradicted  all  his  hopes  for  art. 

It  was  not  the  ugliness  of  the  industrialism  only 
that  appalled  him.  Even  more  it  was  the  luxury  and 
the  misery,  the  lust  of  money  and  the  injustice,  which 
went  with  the  ugliness  and  were  both  cause  and  con- 
sequence. "The  extremities  of  human  degradation," 
Ruskin  said,  "are  not  owing  to  natural  causes;  but  to 
the  habitual  preying  upon  the  labor  of  the  poor  by 
the  luxury  of  the  rich."  ^  In  the  severest  language  he 
condemned  the  tendencies  of  the  times  that  had  their 
root    in    these    conditions, — the    furious   pursuit   of 

1  Works,  XXII,  473;  XXXIII,  398;  XII,  429. 

*  Ibid.,  XXVIII,  374.  Ruskin  printed  in  Fors  an  extract  from  a  con- 
temporary paper  (the  Builder  for  August  25,  1877)  in  part  to  the  follow- 
ing effect:  "  Five  men  own  one-fourth  of  Scotland.  One  duke  owns  96,00x3 
acres  in  Derbyshire,  besides  vast  estates  in  other  parts  of  England  and  in 
Ireland.  Another,  with  estates  all  over  the  United  Kingdom,  has  40,000 
acres  in  Sussex  and  300,000  acres  in  Scotland.  This  nobleman's  park  is 
fifteen  miles  in  circumference!  Another  duke  has  estates  which  the 
highroad  divides  for  twenty-three  miles!  A  marquis  there  is  who  can  ride 
a  hundred  miles  in  a  straight  line  upon  his  own  land!  .  .  .  One  hundred 
and  fifty  persons  own  half  England,  seventy-five  persons  own  half  Scot- 
land, thirty-five  persons  own  half  Ireland;  and  all  the  lands  of  England, 
Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland  are  owned  by  less  than  60,000  persons." 
{Works,  XXIX,  273) 


i68  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

pleasure,  the  thirst  for  excitement  and  change,  the 
criminal  luxury  and  idleness  of  the  rich,  together  with 
the  discontent  and  unrest,  the  misery,  dirt,  and 
degradation  of  the  poor.  The  overworked  and  the 
underworked  were  alike  victims  of  prodigious  social 
folly.  "Our  cities  are  a  wilderness  of  spinning  wheels 
instead  of  palaces;  yet  the  people  have  not  clothes. 
We  have  blackened  every  leaf  of  English  greenwood 
with  ashes,  and  the  people  die  of  cold;  our  harbors 
are  a  forest  of  merchant  ships,  and  the  people  die  of 
hunger."  ^  In  moods  of  anger  and  despair,  Ruskin 
pictured  the  English  people  as  a  money-making  mob, 
concentrating  its  soul  upon  pounds,  shillings,  and 
pence,  and  worshiping  with  all  its  heart  the  great 
Goddess  of  Getting-on,  the  Goddess,  too,  "not  of 
everybody's  getting  on, — but  only  of  somebody's 
getting  on."  The  Crystal  Palace,  a  gigantic  toy-shop 
of  glass,  opened  in  London  in  1854  to  celebrate  Eng- 
land's vast  material  expansion  and  "to  exhibit  the 
paltry  arts  of  our  fashionable  luxury,"  was  to  him  a 
perfect  symbol  of  nineteenth-century  life,  its  frivolity, 
its  love  of  novelty,  its  immense  and  childish  curiosity, 
its  indifference  or  insensitiveness  to  beauty; — a  su- 
preme glorification  indeed  of  an  age  of  machinery  and 
commercialism.  Ruskin  looked  upon  this  age  not 
merely  with  anger,  but  with  genuine  apprehension. 
Carlyle  himself  was  not  more  troubled.  Social 
changes  and  disturbances  were  in  the  air  which 
threatened  revolution.  He  saw  with  great  clearness  a 
coming  struggle  between  a  feudalistic  and  a  demo- 
cratic social  order,  for  he  knew  that  a  society  founded 

'  Works,  XVIII,  502. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    169 

upon  injustice  could  not  endure.  The  upper  classes 
were  losing  their  power  to  govern,  while  the  populace 
was  losing  respect  for  its  rulers  and  was  pressing 
blindly  forward  along  a  road  that  led  it  knew  not 
where.  "We  are  on  the  eve  of  a  great  political  crisis, 
if  not  of  political  change,"  Ruskin  wrote  in  1869. 
"A  struggle  is  approaching  between  the  newly-risen 
power  of  democracy  and  the  apparently  departing 
power  of  feudalism;  and  another  struggle,  no  less 
imminent,  and  far  more  dangerous,  between  wealth 
and  pauperism."  For  eleven  hundred  years  Europe 
has  had  kings  to  rule  over  it,  but  for  the  last  fifty 
years  the  people  "have  begun  to  suspect,  and  of  late 
they  have  many  of  them  concluded,  that  they  have 
been  on  the  whole  ill-governed,  or  mis-governed,  by 
their  kings.  Whereupon  they  say,  more  and  more 
widely,  'Let  us  henceforth  have  no  kings;  and  no 
government  at  all.'"  ^  In  an  article  in  the  Contem- 
porary Review  for  May,  1873,  he  stated  "the  causes 
and  terms  of  the  economical  crisis  of  our  own  day"  as 
follows:  first,  the  growth  of  capitalism,  by  "occupa- 
tion of  land,  usury,  or  taxation  of  labor";  second, 
the  luxury  and  extravagance  of  capitalism,  monopo- 
lizing "the  music,  the  painting,  the  architecture,  the 
hand-service,  the  horse-service,  and  the  sparkling 
champagne  of  the  world."  In  consequence,  "it  is 
gradually  in  these  days  becoming  manifest  to  the 
tenants,  borrowers,  and  laborers,  that  instead  of 
paying  these  large  sums  into  the  hands  of  the 
landlords,  lenders,  and  employers,  for  them  to 
purchase  music,  painting,  etc.,  with,   the   tenants, 

1  Works,  XVIII,  494-5. 


I70  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

borrowers,  and  workers  had  better  buy  a  little  music 
and  painting  for  themselves.  .  .  .  These  are  views 
which  are  gaining  ground  among  the  poor;  and  it  is 
entirely  vain  to  repress  them  by  equivocations.  They 
are  founded  on  eternal  laws."  ^ 

This  system  of  things,  as  Ruskin  saw  it  in  the  dec- 
ades i860  to  1880,  continued  to  be  upheld  in  the 
main  by  the  old  individualistic  economic  creed  of 
Adam  Smith  and  Bentham,  Malthus,  and  Ricardo. 
Its  sacred  principles — laissez-faire^  competition,  self- 
interest — were  yet  regarded  as  the  foundations  of 
national  prosperity,  the  fixed  laws  by  which  men 
were  to  get  on  in  the  world,  although  the  thought  and 
influence  of  J.  S.  Mill  showed  clear  tendencies  in  the 
opposite  direction.  It  was  a  political  economy  that 
boasted  of  being  a  science.  It  professed  to  be  imper- 
sonal and  dispassionate.  With  infinite  pains  its  high 
priests  had  erected  an  image  of  wood  and  stone,  which 
they  hailed  as  "the  economic  man,"  and  which  they 
now  called  upon  all  the  Philistines  to  bow  down  to 
and  worship,  solemnly  adjuring  them  to  repeat  all 
the  pious  formulas  by  which  men  were  to  be  eco- 
nomically saved:  law  of  rent,  law  of  population,  law  of 
wages,  and  the  other  changeless  dogmas  of  their 
religion  of  Mammon.  To  Ruskin  these  doctrines 
were  as  false  as  they  were  soulless.  He  therefore 
attacked  them  as  boldly  as,  twenty  years  before,  he 
had  attacked  the  lifeless  conventions  of  the  contem- 
porary schools  of  art.  But  his  attack  was  not  only 
bold  and  brilliant;  it  was  scornful,  ironic,  iconoclastic, 
and  irreverent.    He  opposed  dogma  with  dogma.    He 

1  Works,  XVII,  564-5. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    171 

asked  pertinent  questions  in  a  manner  that  must  have 
seemed  impertinent  to  the  staid  and  stolid  defenders 
of  the  orthodox  creed.  He  flung  challenge  after 
challenge  into  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  and,  as  Carlyle 
with  grim  pleasure  declared,  he  plunged  his  rapier 
again  and  again  up  to  the  hilt  into  the  belly  of  their 
pagan  deity. 

The  science  of  modern  political  economy,  said 
Ruskin,  "is  a  Lie";  it  is  a  "carnivorous  political 
economy;  it  founds  an  ossifiant  theory  of  progress  on 
the  negation  of  a  soul.  .  .  .  All  our  hearts  have  been 
betrayed  by  the  plausible  impiety  of  the  modern 
economist  telling  us  that,  'To  do  the  best  for  our- 
selves, is  finally  to  do  the  best  for  others.'  Friends, 
our  great  Master  said  not  so;  and  most  absolutely  we 
shall  find  this  world  is  not  so  made.  Indeed,  to  do 
the  best  for  others,  is  finally  to  do  the  best  for  our- 
selves; but  it  will  not  do  to  have  our  eyes  fixed  on 
that  issue."  ^  When  J.  S.  Mill  declared  that  moral 
considerations  had  nothing  to  do  with  political 
economy,  Ruskin  asked  if  questions  of  commerce  and 
industry  did  not  involve  the  justice  and  goodntss  of 
men.  " Economy,"  he  said,  " does  not  depend  merely 
on  principles  of  'demand  and  supply,'  but  primarily 
on  what  is  demanded  and  what  is  supplied."  ^  Against 
the  statement  of  Jevons  that  pleasure  and  pain  "are 
the  ultimate  objects  of  political  economy,"  he  loosed 
a  shaft  that  might  have  come  from  Carlyle's  quiver: 
"there  is  a  swine's  pleasure,  and  dove's;  villain's 
pleasure  and  gentleman's,  to  be  arranged."  To  Mill's 
aphorism  that  "labor  is  limited  by  capital,"  Ruskin 

1  Works,  XVII,  26;  XVIII,  4SS.  ^  Ibid.,  XVII,  178. 


172  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

replied:  "in  an  ultimate,  but  entirely  impractical 
sense,  labor  is  limited  by  capital,  as  it  is  by  matter — 
that  is  to  say,  where  there  is  no  material  there  can  be 
no  work, — but  in  the  practical  sense,  labor  is  limited 
only  by  the  great  original  capital  of  head,  heart,  and 
hand."  ^  A  follower  of  the  economists  had  defended 
in  orthodox  fashion  the  extravagant  expenditures  of 
the  rich  on  the  ground  that  they  benefited  the  poor. 
Ruskin  drew  from  the  experience  of  his  father's  wine- 
firm  and  their  workers  in  Spain  the  apt  and  ironic 
rejoinder:  "these  laborers  produced  from  the  earth 
annually  a  certain  number  of  bottles  of  wine.  These 
productions  were  sold  by  my  father  and  his  partners, 
who  kept  nine-tenths,  or  thereabouts,  of  the  price 
themselves,  and  gave  one-tenth,  or  thereabouts,  to 
the  laborers.  In  which  state  of  mutual  beneficence 
my  father  and  his  partners  naturally  became  rich, 
and  the  laborers  as  naturally  remained  poor." 
Again  and  again  he  opposed  the  stock  English  notion 
that  it  does  not  matter  what  a  laborer  produces,  so 
long  as  he  works  and  is  paid  for  his  work:  "the  real 
good,"  he  contended,  "of  all  work,  and  of  all  com- 
merce, depends  on  the  final  intrinsic  worth  of  the 
thing  you  make,  or  get  by  it."^  Concerning  the 
sacred  laws  of  population  and  of  wages,  he  asked 
embarrassing  questions.  "It  is  proposed  to  better  the 
condition  of  the  laborer  by  giving  him  higher  wages. 
*  Nay,'  say  the  economists, — 'if  you  raise  his  wages, 
he  will  either  people  down  to  the  same  point  of  misery 
at  which  you  found  him,  or  drink  your  wages  away.' 
He  will.    I  know  it.    Who  gave  him  this  will?    Sup- 

»  Works,  XVII,  177.  2  Jii^^  XVIII,  391. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    173 

pose  it  were  your  own  son  of  whom  you  spoke,  de- 
claring to  me  that  you  dared  not  take  him  into  your 
fi^n,  nor  even  give  him  his  just  laborer's  wages, 
because  if  you  did  he  would  die  of  drunkenness,  and 
leave  half  a  score  of  children  to  the  parish.  , '  Who 
gave  your  son  these  dispositions' — I  should  enquire. 
Has  he  them  by  inheritance  or  by  education?  By 
one  or  other  they  must  come;  and  as  in  him,  so 
also  in  the  poor.  .  .  .  Ricardo  defines  what  he 
calls  the  'habitual  rule  of  wages'  as  'that  which 
will  maintain  the  laborer.'  Maintain  him!  Yes; 
but  how?" 

Political  economists,  said  Ruskin,  call  their  science 
"the  science  of  getting  rich.  But  there  are  many 
sciences  as  well  as  many  arts  of  getting  rich.  Poison- 
ing people  of  large  estates,  was  one  employed  largely 
in  the  Middle  Ages;  adulteration  of  food  of  people  of 
small  estates,  is  one  employed  largely  now."  Another 
method  of  acquiring  wealth,  as  practiced  by  modern 
business,  was  pungently  set  forth  by  Ruskin  in  the 
form  of  parable,  a  means  of  illustration  that  he  was 
fond  of  using:  "Suppose  that  three  men,  instead  of 
two,  formed  the  little  isolated  republic,  and  found 
themselves  obliged  to  separate,  in  order  to  farm  diflPer- 
ent  pieces  of  land  at  some  distance  from  each  other 
along  the  coast:  each  estate  furnishing  a  distinct  kind 
of  produce,  and  each  more  or  less  in  need  of  the 
material  raised  on  the  other.  Suppose  that  the  third 
man,  in  order  to  save  the  time  of  all  three,  undertakes 
simply  to  superintend  the  transference  of  commodi- 
ties from  one  farm  to  the  other;  on  condition  of 
receiving   some   sufficiently    remunerative   share   of 


174  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

every  parcel  of  goods  conveyed,  or  of  some  other 
parcel  received  in  exchange  for  it.  If  this  carrier  or 
messenger  always  brings  to  each  estate,  from  the 
other,  what  is  chiefly  wanted,  at  the  right  time,  the 
operations  of  the  two  farmers  will  go  on  prosperously, 
and  the  largest  possible  result  in  produce,  or  wealth, 
will  be  attained  by  the  little  community.  But  sup- 
pose no  intercourse  between  the  landowners  is  pos- 
sible, except  through  the  travelling  agent;  and  that, 
after  a  time,  this  agent,  watching  the  course  of  each 
man's  agriculture,  keeps  back  the  articles  with  which 
he  has  been  entrusted  until  there  comes  a  period  of 
extreme  necessity  for  them,  on  one  side  or  other,  and 
then  exacts  in  exchange  for  them  all  that  the  dis- 
tressed farmer  can  spare  of  other  kinds  of  produce: 
it  is  easy  to  see  that  by  ingeniously  watching  his 
opportunities,  he  might  possess  himself  regularly  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  superfluous  produce  of  the  two 
estates,  and  at  last,  in  some  years  of  severest  trial  or 
scarcity,  purchase  both  for  himself  and  maintain  the 
former  proprietors  thenceforward  as  his  laborers 
or  servants."  ^ 

These  assaults,  with  scores  of  others,  witty,  Ironical, 
trenchant,  brought  down  upon  Ruskin  the  jeers  of 
the  philistines,  who  vented  their  wrath  by  calling  him 
a  sentimentalist  and  a  Don  Quixote,  a  madman  who 

1  Works,  XVII,  io6,  io8,  6i,  SI.  Cf.  138.  "Ricardo's  chapter  on  Rent 
and  Adam  Smith's  eighth  chapter  on  the  wages  of  labor  stand,  to  my 
mind,  quite  Sky  High  among  the  Monuments  of  Human  Brutification; 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  paralysis  of  human  intellect  fed  habitually  on  Grass, 
instead  of  Bread  of  God.  .  .  .  Nothing  that  I  yet  know  of  equals  the 
saying  of  Bright,  in  the  House,  that  'in  a  common  sense  mercantile 
community  the  adulteration  of  food  can  only  be  considered  a  form  of 
competition.'"    (XXXVI,  416,  593.) 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    175 

was  attempting  to  explode  established  dogmas  with 
mere  heresies  and  paradoxes.  It  was  in  truth  a  many- 
headed  monster  that  he  set  out  to  slay,  when  he  put 
aside  his  drawing  and  his  art-study  to  take  up  the 
problems  of  social  reform.  And  when  he  forsook  his 
art,  he  gave  up  his  peace  and  happiness  of  heart,  at 
least  as  he  had  known  these  in  the  old  undisturbed 
days.  Whoever  will  go  through  the  mass  of  published 
letters  and  diaries  for  the  decades  1860-1880,  a  most 
intimate  record  of  Ruskin's  mind  for  those  years,  will 
find  there  the  tragic  story  of  a  brilliant  and  refined 
nature,  goaded  on  and  on  by  its  own  sense  of  the  evil 
and  injustice  in  the  affairs  of  men,  until  it  is  obscured 
in  the  temporary  eclipse  of  brain-fever,  emerging 
again  for  a  brief  interval,  only  to  pass  at  last  into  the 
lengthened  twilight  which  preceded  the  end.  Fors 
ClavigerUj  the  collection  of  letters  to  workingmen, 
reads  more  like  the  outburst  of  a  disillusioned  and 
perplexed  modern  Hamlet  than  the  sober  attempt  of 
a  wise  reformer  to  right  the  wrongs  of  the  world  about 
him.  For  after  all  Ruskin  did  not  regard  social  re- 
form as  his  proper  field.  "It  is  the  'first  mild  day  of 
March,'  "  he  wrote  in  1867,  "and  by  rights  I  ought  to 
be  out  among  the  budding  banks  and  hedges,  outlin- 
ing sprays  of  hawthorne  and  clusters  of  primrose. 
That  is  my  right"  v/ork."  ^  In  the  years  after  i860,  he 
often  referred  to  his  vacillating  temper,  vacillating 
between  desire  for  "quiet  investigation  of  beautiful 
things,"  and  duty  to  battle  with  the  misery  and  folly 
of  humanity. 2  As  his  biographer  has  said,  the  moral 
and  active  side  of  his  soul  was  at  strife  with  the  artis- 

1  ^orK XVII,  376.    Cf.  XVII,  415.  2  Cf.  XVIII,  intro.  XIX. 


176  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

tic  and  contemplative.  The  contrast  between  the  old 
beautiful  world  that  had  burst  upon  him  when  he  had 
journeyed  leisurely  by  stage-coach  to  the  Alps  or  to 
Italy,  and  the  new  world  of  industry,  was  more 
tormenting  each  time  that  he  revisited  the  continent. 
"This  first  day  of  May,  1869,"  he  said  in  his  preface 
to  The  ^ueen  of  the  Air^  "I  am  writing  where  my 
work  was  begun  thirty-five  years  ago,  within  sight  of 
the  snow  of  the  higher  Alps.  In  that  half  of  the  per- 
mitted life  of  man,  I  have  seen  strange  evil  brought 
upon  every  scene  that  I  best  loved,  or  tried  to  make 
beloved  by  others.  The  light  which  once  flushed 
those  pale  summits  with  its  rose  at  dawn,  and  purple 
at  sunset,  is  now  umbered  and  faint;  the  air  which 
once  inlaid  the  clefts  of  all  their  golden  crags  with 
azure  is  now  defiled  with  languid  coils  of  smoke, 
belched  from  worse  than  volcanic  fires;  their  very 
glacier  waves  are  ebbing,  and  their  snows  fading,  as  if 
Hell  had  breathed  on  them;  the  waters  that  once  sank 
at  their  feet  into  crystalline  rest  are  now  dimmed  and 
foul,  from  deep  to  deep^  and  shore  to  shore.  These 
are  no  careless  words — they  are  accurately — horribly 
— true.  I  know  what  the  Swiss  lakes  were;  no  pool  of 
Alpine  fountain  at  its  source  was  clearer.  This  morn- 
ing on  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  at  half  a  mile  from  the 
beach,  I  could  scarcely  see  my  oar-blade  a  fathom 
deep."  ^  The  acute  disturbances  that  Ruskin's  mind 
suffered  from  time  to  time  during  these  years  is  no- 
where better  suggested,  perhaps,  than  in  the  bitter 
comment  upon  his  life  as  "a  series  of  delights  which 

1  Works,  XIX,  293.  Cj.  XVI,  338;  XXXVII,  204;  also,  travel  by  coach 
as  contrasted  with  travel  by  rail,  XXV,  451. 


ART  AND  THE  MODERN  WORLD    177 

are  gone   forever,  and  of  griefs  which  remain   for- 
ever." ^ 

This  conflict  on  the  higher  levels  of  his  nature  be- 
tween the  ethical  and  the  aesthetic  was  inevitable, 
howev^er,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  both  passions  had  their 
rootage  in  a  unity  deeper  down,  and  neither  could  be 
completely  satisfied  unless  it  was  true  to  its  source. 
Ruskin's  interest  in  art  demanded  that  the  moral  and 
social  conditions  of  man  should  be  improved  as  the 
foundation  of  art.  It  was  futile  to  teach  the  depend- 
ence of  art  upon  sound  life,  when  society  seemed  to  be 
rushing  madly  into  everything  that  was  unsound.  "It 
is  the  vainest  of  affectations,"  he  declared,  "to  try 
and  put  beauty  into  shadows,  while  all  real  things  that 
cast  them  are  in  deformity  and  pain.  .  .  .  You  can- 
not have  a  landscape  by  Turner^  without  a  country  for 
him  to  paint;  you  cannot  have  a  portrait  by  Titian^ 
without  a  man  to  be  portrayed.  .  .  .  The  beginning  of 
art  is  in  getting  our  country  clean^  and  our  people 
beautiful.  .  .  .  Beautiful  art  can  only  be  produced 
by  people  who  have  beautiful  things  about  them,  and 
leisure  to  look  at  them."  ^  Manifestly  it  was  not  a 
time  for  the  entertainment  of  the  arts,  but  for  far 
weightier  and  more  fundamental  work.  Ruskin 
therefore  sternly  resolved,  as  he  said  in  Fors^  to  en- 
dure passively  the  present  condition  no  longer,  but 
to  do  his  poor  best  to  lead  the  way  to  better  things. 
People  had  read  his  descriptions  of  nature  and  art  and 

•  Letters  to  Norton,  I,  184.  Ruskin's  letters  to  Norton  are  the  best  record 
of  his  mental  condition  from  i860  to  1880.  It  should  be  noted,  however, 
that  his  love  affair  with  Miss  Rose  LaTouche  was  in  this  period  another 
important  source  of  spiritual  disturbance. 

2  fVorks,  XVII,  intra.  XXIV;  XX,  107;  XVI,  338. 


178  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

had  pronounced  them  pretty,  but  they  had  heeded 
not  his  call  to  beauty.  The  day  had  come,  therefore, 
for  him  to  cease  speaking  and  to  begin  doing.  "My 
thoughts  have  changed  also,  as  my  words  have;  and 
whereas  in  earlier  life,  what  little  influence  I  obtained 
was  due  chiefly  to  the  enthusiasm  with  which  I  was 
able  to  dwell  on  the  beauty  of  the  physical  clouds, 
and  of  their  colors  in  the  sky;  so  all  the  influence  I 
now  desire  to  retain  must  be  due  to  the  earnestness 
with  which  I  am  endeavoring  to  trace  the  form  and 
beauty  of  another  kind  of  cloud  than  those;  the 
bright  cloud  of  which  it  is  written — 'What  is  your 
life?'"i 

Works,  XVIII,  146. 


CHAPTER  VT 

THE  ART-IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY 
AND  THE  NEW  POLITICAL  ECONOMY 

"Life  without  industry  is  guilt,  and  industry  without 
art  is  brutality.  .  .  .  The  real  science  of  political  econ- 
omy, which  has  yet  to  be  distinguished  from  the  bastard 
science,  as  medicine  from  witchcraft,  and  astronomy  from 
astrology,  is  that  which  teaches  nations  to  desire  and  labor 
for  the  things  that  lead  to  life." — Ruskin. 

The  inspiration  for  social  reform  came  to  Ruskin 
trom  art.  His  clue  to  the  solution  of  social  prob- 
lems came  also  from  art,  and  chiefly  from  architec- 
ture. In  a  concluding  chapter  of  the  last  volume 
of  Modem  Painters ^  he  said:  "Every  principle  of 
painting  which  I  have  stated  is  traced  to  some  vital 
or  spiritual  fact;  and  in  my  works  on  architecture  the 
preference  accorded  finally  to  one  school  over  an- 
other, is  founded  on  a  comparison  of  their  influences 
on  the  life  of  the  w(irkman — a  question  by  all  other 
writers  on  the  subject  of  architecture  wholly  forgotten 
or  despised."  ^  The  earliest  suggestion  of  the  precise 
form  which  his  social  thought  was  to  take  may  be 
found  in  two  or  three  passages  in  Seven  Lamps  (1849), 
where  he  drew  the  attention  of  his  readers  to  the  bear- 
ing of  architecture  upon  the  condition  of  the  work- 
man: "I  believe  the  right  question  to  ask  respecting 
all  ornament  is  simply  this:  was  it  done  with  enjoy- 

»  Works,  VII,  257. 

179 


i8o  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

ment — was  the  carver  happy  while  he  was  about  it?" 
Mere  benevolent  advice  and  instruction,  he  contends, 
are  futile  as  cures  for  the  idleness  and  discontent  ot 
the  masses.  What  the  men  need  is  occupation,  but, 
he  hastens  to  add,  "  I  do  not  mean  work  in  the  sense  of 
bread, — I  mean  work  in  the  sense  of  mental  interest."^ 
This  idea  of  mental  interest  in  work,  the  alpha  and 
omega  of  Ruskin's  social  philosophy,  was  fully 
developed  for  the  first  time  in  the  famous  chapter  on 
Gothic  architecture  in  The  Stones  of  Venice  (1851- 
1853), — one  of  the  most  convincing  and  most  elo- 
quent statements  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
social  reform  written  in  the  nineteenth  century.  "To 
some  of  us  when  we  first  read  it,  now  many  years 
ago,"  said  William  Morris,  "it  seemed  to  point  out  a 
new  road  on  which  the  world  should  travel."  "It  set 
fire  to  his  enthusiasm,"  says  Professor  Mackail, 
Morris's  biographer,  "and  kindled  the  belief  of  his 
whole  life."  ^  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison,  biographer  and 
friend  of  Ruskin,  as  well  as  himself  a  social  reformer, 
called  the  chapter  "the  creed,  if  it  be  not  the  origin, 
of  a  new  industrial  school  of  thought."  Ruskin  him- 
self attached  great  importance  to  this  memorable 
utterance  for  he  called  it  "precisely  and  accurately 
the  most  important  chapter  in  the  whole  book";  and 
he  said  that  "of  all  that  I  have  to  bring  forward 
respecting  architecture,  this  is  the  one  I  have  most  at 

1  Works,  VIII,  218,  261. 

2  Morris,  it  will  be  recalled,  printed  the  chapter  at  the  Kelmscott  Press 
in  1892,  writing  for  it  an  introduction  from  which  the  above  remark  of  his 
is  taken.  First  distributed  free,  and  afterwards  sold  in  sixpenny  pamph- 
let form,  the  chapter  was  used  as  the  manifesto  of  the  Working  Men's 
College,  at  its  opening  in  1854. 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        i8i 

heart."  We  have  seen  how  passionately  he  admired 
Gothic.  From  the  multitudinous  and  fascinating 
diversity  in  the  surface  and  form  of  those  "perpendic- 
ular flights  of  aspiration,"  erected  by  the  piety  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  communes  of  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries, — Chartres,  Beauvais,  Amiens, 
Rouen,  and  Rheims, — he  discovered  intimations  of 
the  true  spirit  of  man,  its  freedom  and  fierceness,  its 
fun  and  terror,  its  faith  and  longing,  its  ever  haunting 
sense  of  mystery  in  the  midst  of  the  here  and  now. 
Upon  their  walls  the  poetry  of  the  soul  seemed  to  be 
written,  not  of  the  master  builders  only,  but  of 
multitudes  of  lesser  workmen  as  well.  In  the  shap- 
ing and  placing  of  stone  upon  stone,  in  the  creation  of 
tower  and  arch,  pinnacle,  capital,  and  tracery,  in  the 
redundant  and  endlessly  varied  carving  of  leaf  and 
vine,  gargoyle  and  saint,  Ruskin  found  perpetual 
evidence  that  the  workman  had  realized,  even  though 
in  humble  manner  often,  the  joy  of  creative  effort. 
It  was  Gothic  architecture,  therefore,  that  revealed 
to  him  his  way  out  of  the  wilderness  of  social  prob- 
lems which  confronted  him  when  he  first  looked 
upon  the  modern  world.  Gothic  taught  him  that 
happiness  in  labor  is  the  right  of  every  worker,  from 
gifted  genius  to  humblest  toiler.  "It  is,  perhaps,  the 
principal  admirableness  of  the  Gothic  schools  of 
architecture,"  he  said,  "that  they  receive  the  results 
of  the  labor  of  inferior  minds."  What  we  have  to  do 
with  all  our  laborers  is  "to  look  for  the  thoughtful 
part  of  them,  and  get  that  out  of  them,  whatever  we 
lose  for  it,  whatever  faults  and  errors  we  are  obliged 
to  take  with  it." 


1 82  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Ruskin  begins,  in  the  chapter  on  the  nature  of 
Gothic,  by  condemning  modern  industry  because  it 
degrades  men  to  machines.  The  trouble  with  labor 
to-day,  he  declared,  is  that  men  are  "divided  into 
mere  segments  of  men — broken  into  small  fragments 
and  crumbs  of  life;  so  that  all  the  little  piece  of  intelli- 
gence that  is  left  in  a  man  is  not  enough  to  make  a  pin, 
or  a  nail,  but  exhausts  itself  in  making  the  point  of  a 
pin  or  the  head  of  a  nail."  It  is  this  degradation,  he 
continues,  "which,  more  than  any  other  evil  of  the 
times,  is  leading  the  masses  of  the  nation  everywhere 
into  vain,  incoherent,  destructive  struggling  for  a 
freedom  of  which  they  cannot  explain  the  nature 
to  themselves."  What  the  worker  must  have  is  the 
opportunity  for  self-expression  in  his  work,  even 
though  mechanical  precision  and  perfection  should 
be  sacrificed.  "You  must  either  make  a  tool  of  the 
creature,  or  a  man  of  him.  You  cannot  make  both. 
Men  were  not  intended  to  work  with  the  accuracy  of 
tools,  to  be  precise  and  perfect  in  all  their  actions.  If 
you  will  have  that  precision  out  of  them,  and  make 
their  fingers  measure  degrees  like  cog-wheels,  and 
their  arms  strike  curves  like  compasses,  you  must 
unhumanize  them.  All  the  energy  of  their  spirits 
must  be  given  to  make  cogs  and  compasses  of  them- 
selves. All  their  attention  and  strength  must  go  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  mean  act.  The  eye  of 
the  soul  must  be  bent  upon  the  finger-point,  and  the 
soul's  force  must  fill  all  the  invisible  nerves  that  guide 
it,  ten  hours  a  day,  that  it  may  not  err  fromits  steely 
precision,  and  so  soul  and  sight  be  worn  away,  and 
the  whole  human  being  lost  at  last — a  heap  of  saw- 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        183 

dust,  so  far  as  its  intellectual  work  in  this  world  is 
concerned;  saved  only  by  its  Heart,  which  cannot  go 
into  the  form  of  cogs  and  compasses  but  expands, 
after  the  ten  hours  are  over,  into  fireside  humanity. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  you  will  make  a  man  of  the 
working  creature,  you  cannot  make  a  tool.  Let  him 
but  begin  to  imagine,  to  think,  to  try  to  do  anything 
worth  doing;  and  the  engine-turned  precision  is  lost 
at  once.  Out  come  all  his  roughness,  all  his  dulness, 
all  his  incapability;  shame  upon  shame,  failure  upon 
failure,  pause  after  pause;  but  out  comes  the  whole 
majesty  of  him  also;  and  we  know  the  height  of  it 
only,  when  we  see  the  clouds  settling  upon  him.  And, 
whether  the  clouds  be  bright  or  dark,  there  will  be 
transfiguration  behind  and  within  them.  .  .  .  Men 
may  be  beaten,  chained,  tormented,  yoked  like 
cattle,  slaughtered  like  summer  flies,  and  yet  remain 
in  one  sense,  and  the  best  sense,  free.  But  to  smother 
their  souls  within  them,  to  blight  and  hew  into  rotting 
pollards  the  suckling  branches  of  their  human  intelli- 
gence, to  make  the  flesh  and  skin  which,  after  the 
worm's  work  on  it,  is  to  see  God,  into  leathern  thongs 
to  yoke  machinery  with, — this  it  is  to  be  slave- 
masters  indeed;  and  there  might  be  more  freedom  in 
England,  though  her  feudal  lords*  lightest  words  were 
worth  men's  lives,  and  though  the  blood  of  the  vexed 
husbandman  dropped  in  the  furrows  of  her  fields, 
than  there  is  while  the  animation  of  her  multitudes  is 
sent  like  fuel  to  feed  the  factory  smoke,  and  the 
strength  of  them  is  given  daily  to  be  wasted  into  the 
fineness  of  a  web,  or  racked  into  the  exactness  of  a 
line.    And,  on  the  other  hand,  go  forth  again  to  gaze 


i84  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

upon  the  old  cathedral  front,  where  you  have  smiled 
so  often  at  the  fantastic  ignorance  of  the  old  sculp- 
tors: examine  once  more  those  ugly  goblins,  and  form- 
less monsters,  and  stern  statues,  anatomiless  and 
rigid;  but  do  not  mock  at  them,  for  they  are  signs  of 
the  life  and  liberty  of  every  workman  who  struck  the 
stone;  a  freedom  of  thought,  and  rank  in  scale  of 
being,  such  as  no  laws,  no  charters,  no  charities  can 
secure;  but  which  it  must  be  the  first  aim  of  all  Europe 
at  this  day  to  regain  for  her  children."  ^ 

The  gospel  of  joy  in  work  was  a  new  and  strange 
gospel  to  Ruskin's  contemporaries,  and  to  many  it  is 
a  very  strange  gospel  still.  The  mill  owners  and  the 
laborers  of  i860,  like  the  political  economists  of  that 
day,  looked  upon  work  as  something  to  be  endured 
from  necessity,  something  to  be  done  and  over  with 
in  the  shortest  time  possible.  It  was  a  painful  activ- 
ity, falling  chiefly  upon  the  unfortunate,  to  be  paid 
for  by  wages, — a  disagreeable  means  to  an  unavoid- 
able end.2  "We  do  not  pretend  that  these  dingy 
toilers  in  mine  or  factory  are  happy,  "  said  the  cap- 
tains of  industry  of  that  day;  "but  their  toil  keeps 
them  alive;  otherwise  they  and  their  children  would 
starve  to  death  like  rats  upon  a  deserted  ship.    We 

1  Works,  X,  196,  194,  192-4. 

2  The  difference  between  Ruskin's  view  of  labor  and  the  economists' 
is  well  shown  in  a  remark  that  Ruskin  wrote  on  the  margin  of  Mill's 
Principles  of  Political  Economy;  in  Mill's  "first  definition  of  labor  he 
includes  in  the  idea  of  it  'all  feelings  of  a  disagreeable  kind  connected 
with  one's  thoughts  in  a  particular  occupatioi).'  True;  but  why  not  also, 
'feelings  of  an  agreeable  kind'?"  (JVorks,  XVII,  67.)  Mr.  Frederic 
Harrison,  in  his  Memoirs  (I,  236),  in  speaking  of  Ruskin's  vehement 
disapproval  of  Millet,  the  painter,  quotes  Ruskin:  "no  painter  has  any 
business  to  represent  labor  as  gloomy.  It  is  not  gloomy,  but  blessed 
and  cheerful." 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        1R5 

do  not  even  pretend  that  we  ourselves  enjoy  our  bus- 
iness, but  we  like  to  make  money  and  we  like  the 
houses  and  lands  and  social  position  that  our  money 
provides.  Moreover,  behold  the  unexampled  wealth 
and  prosperity  of  England, — the  richest  nation  on  the 
globe!"  Thus  they  argued.  Whatever  else  these 
men  were,  they  were  not  hypocritical.  They  suffered 
no  delusions  to  distort  the  clear  view  they  had  of  their 
own  activities.  Their  convictions  were  reinforced, 
too,  by  a  school  of  economic  thought  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  assumed  that  "  the  ruling  passions  of  man- 
kind were  wealth  and  ease."  But  Ruskin,  like  Carlyle, 
took  a  different  view.  To  him  work  was  less  a  means 
than  an  end.  It  was  not  so  much  a  necessity  as  an  op- 
portunity, and,  if  it  yielded  a  livelihood,  it  should 
also  develop  a  life.  More  than  all  else,  therefore,  Rus- 
kin sought  to  put  the  art-motive  into  every  possible 
form  of  human  effort,  into  the  crafts  and  industries, 
as  it  was  already  in  the  fine  arts.  He  would  broaden 
the  definition  of  art  and  remove  the  rigid  boundaries 
that  existed  between  the  lower  kinds  of  art  and  the 
higher. 

"There  is  not  a  definite  separation  between  the 
two  kinds,"  he  said, — "a  blacksmith  may  put  soul 
into  the  making  of  a  horseshoe,  and  an  architect  may 
put  none  into  the  building  of  a  church.  Only  exactly 
in  proportion  as  the  Soul  is  thrown  into  it,  the  art 
becomes  Fine.  .  .  .  Art  is  the  operation  of  the  hand 
and  the  intelligence  of  man  together:  there  is  an  art 
of  making  machinery;  there  is  an  art  of  building 
ships;  an  art  of  making  carriages;  and  so  on.  All 
these,  properly  called  Arts,  but  not  Fine  Arts,  are 


i86  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

pursuits  in  which  the  hand  of  man  and  his  head  go 
together,  working  at  the  same  instant."  ^  The  first 
principle  of  social  reform  and  the  last,  Ruskin  in- 
sisted, was  that  in  labor  hand  and  soul  should  be 
united,  for  if  it  was  only  by  labor  that  thought  could 
be  made  healthy,  it  was  no  less  true  that  only  by 
thought  could  labor  be  made  happy.  The  primal 
eldest  curse  of  modern  industry  was  that  it  crushed 
the  soul  out  of  man  and  made  work  a  torment.  The 
one  way  to  extirpate  this  root-calamity,  therefore, 
was  to  establish  as  fast  and  as  far  as  possible  a  condi- 
tion of  things  wherein  each  worker  should  realize, 
according  to  his  ability,  and  according  to  the  nature 
of  his  work,  that  sense  of  life  which  comes  in  fullest 
measure  to  the  creative  artist,  to  him  who  bodies 
forth  through  one  medium  or  another  the  forms  of 
things  unseen.  The  conservation  of  the  individual 
through  creative  industry, — this  was  the  star  that 
Ruskin  followed  in  his  strange  adventures  upon  the 
troubled  waters  of  political  economy  and  social 
reconstruction.  2 

^  Works,  XI,  intro.  XIX;  XVI,  294.  With  perhaps  mingled  jest  and 
earnest,  because  he  was  alluding  to  the  much  laughed-at  Hinksey  Diggers 
of  Oxford  (of  whom  more  later),  but  with  more  earnest  than  jest,  Ruskin 
included  road-making  as  an  occupation  with  something  of  "art"  in  it 
(XX,  intro.  XLIII.)  "A  true  artist,"  he  said,  "is  only  a  beautiful  devel- 
opment of  tailor  or  carpenter."  (XXVII,  186.)  Ruskin  tried  his  hand  at 
various  "arts  and  crafts,"  including  brick-laying,  carpentering,  house- 
painting,  street-sweeping,  and  scrubbing.  Cf.  Cook,  Life,  I,  447;  XXIII, 
52;  XXI,  intro.  XX. 

2  "I  am  myself  more  set  on  teaching  healthful  industry  than  anything 
else,  as  the  beginning  of  all  redemption,"  said  Ruskin  in  Fors.  (XXVII, 
364.)  "It  matters  little,  ultimately,  how  much  a  laborer  is  paid  for 
making  anything;  but  it  matters  fearfully  what  the  thing  is,  which  he  is 
compelled  to  make.  ...  All  professions  should  be  liberal,  and  there 
should  be  less  pride  felt  in  peculiarity  of  employment,  and  more  in  excel- 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        187 

It  is  well-nigh  impossible  to  bring  into  connected 
form  an  account  of  these  adventures,  since  Ruskin 
was  the  most  irresponsible  of  voyagers,  sometimes 
pursuing  his  course  by  the  most  devious  of  routes, 
and  never  weary  of  pushing  his  prow  into  various 
queer  creeks  and  bays  along  the  way.  His  writings 
on  society  and  the  laws  by  which  men  live  are  to  be 
found  not  in  one  or  two  volumes,  but  in  a  dozen. 
They  are,  moreover,  in  the  highest  degree  discur- 
sive,— "desultory  talk,"  Ruskin  once  aptly  called 
them, — "unprogressive  inlets"  of  thought,  he  de- 
scribed them  on  another  occasion.  Just  as  in  earlier 
days  he  had  frequently  been  drawn  away  from  art 
into  the  discussion  of  "irrelevant  and  Utopian 
topics"  against  which  his  friends  had  remonstrated 
in  vain,  so  now  he  digressed  at  will  from  political 
economy  and  the  guild  of  St.  George  into  the  fields  of 
art,  religion,  mythology,  and  etymology.  He  con- 
cludes one  of  his  chapters  in  Munera  Pulveris  with  an 
extended  exposition  of  the  attitude  of  Dante,  Homer, 
Plato,  and  Spenser  on  the  use  or  the  misuse  of  wealth; 
and  in  Fors  he  finds  illustrations  and  lessons  for 
modern  conditions  of  society  in  Giotto's  frescoes, 
Chaucer's  Romance  of  the  Rose,  and  other  literary  and 
art  works  all  the  way  down  to  Lockhart's  Life  of 
Scott.  So,  too,  in  Time  and  Tide,  brilliant  suggestions 
for  a  new  social  order  are  freely  interspersed  with  all 
manner  of  whimsical  subjects,  such  as  pantomime 
and   Japanese  jugglers,    the    four   possible    theories 

lence  of  achievement." — In  connection  with  his  teaching  at  the  Working 
Men's  College,  Ruskin  testified  before  a  parliamentary  committee:  "My 
efforts  are  directed  not  to  making  a  carpenter  an  artist,  but  to  making 
him  happier  as  a  carpenter."     {fVorks,  XVIII,  391;  X,  201;  XIII,  553.) 


i88  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

respecting  the  origin  of  the  Bible,  the  use  of  music 
and  dancing  under  the  Jewish  theocracy,  and  the  Hke. 
Ruskin's  fondness  for  verbal  distinctions  founded 
upon  etymological  principles  involved  him  not  only 
in  futile  digressions,  but  also  at  times  in  plain  confu- 
sion of  terms,  as  when  in  one  work  he  distinguishes 
"labor"  from  "effort"  (labor  being  that  amount  of 
effort  which  brings  distress  or  loss  of  life),  and  then  in 
subsequent  books  he  drops  the  distinction,  using  the 
words  in  their  ordinary  meanings.  Intermingled  with 
these  alien  topics  is  an  increasing  amount  of  person- 
alia, which  in  Fors  is  often  little  more  than  querulous 
egotism,  interesting  as  the  self-revelation  of  an 
extraordinarily  sensitive  man  of  genius  during  a 
prolonged  period  of  mental  disturbance,  but  irrel- 
evant, if  not  impertinent,  in  a  serious  treatment  of 
social  ideals.^  In  Fors  he  made  several  attempts  to 
bring  together  these  scattered  statements  of  social  and 
economic  doctrine,  but  gave  up  each  time,  finding,  as 
he  said,  that  his  abstracts  needed  "further  abstrac- 
tion." In  his  later  years,  even  more  than  in  his  earlier, 
his  mind  lacked  what  Arnold  called  ''  ordo  concatena- 
tioque  veriy'  order  and  linked  succession  of  truth. 

But  it  is  to  be  remembered,  as  regards  any  state- 
ment of  fundamental  principles,  that  Ruskin's  plans 
were  abruptly  blocked  by  his  publishers  and  the  pub- 
lic. In  their  fragmentary  state.  Unto  This  Last  and 
Munera  Pulveris.  the  onlv  works  that  were  written  to 
deal  with  political  economy  by  "itself,  were  never 
regarded  as  more   than    "prefaces"  and  "introduc- 

^  E.  g.,    "I  ratlier  enjoy  talking  about  myself,  even  in  my  follies." 
(XXIX,  74) 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        189 

tory  papers."  Stung  to  anger  by  the  hostile  reception 
of  Unto  This  Last^  a  book  into  which  Ruskin  thought 
he  had  put  better  work  than  into  any  of  his  former 
writings  and  "more  important  truths  than  all  of  them 
put  together,"  he  did  intend,  he  says,  after  two  more 
years  of  thinking,  "  to  make  it  the  central  work  of 
my  life  to  write  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  Political 
Economy."  ^  But  his  purposes  were  a  second  time 
frustrated.  And  what  we  have,  therefore,  as  the 
substance  of  his  social  philosophy,  apart  from  its 
sources  in  his  philosophy  of  art,  are  a  few  "broken 
statements  of  principle"  in  Unto  This  Last  and  Mun- 
era  PulveriSy  followed  by  many  schemes  and  ideals  of 
social  reconstruction  set  forth  mainly  in  the  discur- 
sive form  of  letters  in  Time  and  Tide  and  Fors  Clavi- 
geray  together  with  innumerable  pregnant  hints  and 
suggestions  scattered  broadcast  over  all  his  later 
work  and  even  here  and  there  in  some  of  the  earlier 
volumes.  Indeed  the  most  casual  efforts  of  his  pen 
can  scarcely  be  neglected,  for  in  them  the  reader  is 
likely  to  discover  not  a  little  of  Ruskin's  most  lumi- 
nous thought  and  happiest  irony,  without  which  the 
central  doctrines  would  themselves  lose  much  of  their 
trenchant  force. 

The  author  of  Modern  Painters  began  by  defining 
the  aim  of  political  economy  to  be  "  the  multiplication 
of  human  life  at  the  highest  standard."  ^  Certain 
things  in  the  world  are  useful  and  lead  to  life;  certain 
other  things  are  useless  or  harmful  and  lead  to  death. 
Give  a  man  corn  and  he  will  live;  give  him  night- 
shade and  he  will  die.    It  follows,  therefore,  that  "  the 

>  Works,  XVII,  143.  ^Ihid.,  XVII,  ISO. 


I90  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

essential  work  of  the  political  economist  is  to  deter- 
mine what  are  in  reality  useful  or  life-giving  things, 
and  by  what  degrees  and  kinds  of  labor  they  are 
attainable  and  distributable.  This  investigation 
divides  itself  under  three  great  heads: — the  studies, 
namely,  of  the  phenomena,  first,  of  Wealth;  secondly, 
of  Money;  and  thirdly,  of  Riches.  .  .  .  The  study 
of  Wealth  is  a  province  of  natural  science: — it  deals 
with  the  essential  properties  of  things.  The  study  of 
Money  is  a  province  of  commercial  science: — it  deals 
with  conditions  of  engagement  and  exchange.  The 
study  of  Riches  is  a  province  of  moral  science: — it 
deals  with  the  due  relations  of  men  to  each  other  in 
regard  of  material  possessions;  and  with  the  just  laws 
of  their  association  for  purposes  of  labor."  ^  Although 
none  of  these  divisions  of  inquiry  in  the  field  of 
economics  proper  was  carried  much  beyond  a  state- 
ment of  definitions,  Ruskin  had  least  of  importance 
to  say  concerning  the  intricate  subject  of  money, 
which  we  may  therefore  dismiss  with  his  preliminary 
assertions.  "Money,"  he  said,  "has  been  inaccu- 
rately spoken  of  as  merely  a  means  of  exchange.  But 
it  is  far  more  than  this.  It  is  a  documentary  expres- 
sion of  legal  claim.  It  is  not  wealth,  but  a  documen- 
tary claim  to  wealth,  being  the  sign  of  the  relative 
qualities  of  it,  or  of  the  labor  producing  it,  to  which, 
at  a  given  time,  persons,  or  societies,  are  entitled."  - 
Concerning  wealth  Ruskin  regarded  it  as  his  first 

1  Works,  XVII,   152. 

^  Ibid.,  XVII,  157.  Ruskin  here  and  there  had  a  good  deal  to  say  on 
the  subject  of  money,  but  most  of  what  he  says  is  either  too  incomplete 
and  detached  or  fantastic  to  be  of  much  value.  In  the  later  Fors  days 
especially,  he  wrote  much  on  the  subject  of  interest,  which  he  condemned 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        191 

object  to  give  a  "stable"  definition,  and  "to  show 
that  the  acquisition  of  wealth  was  finally  possible 
only  under  certain  moral  conditions  of  society."  ^ 
This  statement  of  purpose  reveals  unmistakably 
the  fact  that  the  field  of  political  economy  in  his 
hands  was  immensely  broadened  so  as  to  include  the 
larger  questions  of  ethics  and  society.  Wealth,  he 
had  said,  deals  with  the  properties  of  things;  it 
"consists  of  things  essentially  valuable."  Value,  as 
the  life-giving  power  of  anything,  is  both  intrinsic 
and  effectual:  intrinsic  value  is  the  absolute  power  of 
anything  to  support  life";  efl^ectual  value  is  intrinsic 
value  plus  "acceptant  capacity.  The  production  oj 
effectual  value,  therefore,  always  involves  two  needs: 
first,  the  production  of  a  thi77g  essentially  useful;  then 
the  production  of  the  capacity  to  use  it.''  2  A  strange 
gospel  for  a  political  economist!  Wealth  is,  then, 
neither  money  nor  accumulation  of  goods  alone?  An 
aristocract  with  ten  thousand  acres  of  land,  or  a 
plutocrat  with  hundreds  of  old  masters  in  his  picture 
gallery  is  not  to  be  called  wealthy?  Not  at  all 
necessarily,  said  Ruskin,  since  a  thing  is  not  wealth 
unless  it  is  a  useful  thing  in  the  possession  of  him  who 
can  use  it  for  his  own  or  his  neighbor's  good.  The 
right  thing  in  the  right  hands,  the  tools  of  a  trade  or 
the  instruments  of  culture  to  him  who  can  use  them, 
— these  only  are  wealth. ^ 

as  pillage  and  theft  of  the  laborer,  as  increment  to  rich  and  decrement  to 
poor,  a  tax  by  the  idle  and  the  rogue  on  the  busy  and  honest,  etc.,  etc. 
The  reader  may  find  a  large  number  of  references  to  the  subject  of  money 
and  interest  listed  in  the  Index  to  the  Library  Edition. 

1  Works,  XVII,  19. 

»  Ibid.,  XVII,  154. 

'  "  There  is  no  wealth  but  life.    Life,  including  all  its  powers  of  love,  of 


192  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

A  man's  possessions,  or  his  wealth,  as  wealth  is 
ordinarily  understood,  Ruskin  called  his  "riches." 
Riches  are  power  over  men,  since  no  man  can  accu- 
mulate material  possessions  without  being  able  to 
command  the  labor  of  others.  This  power  is  good  or 
bad  according  as  it  is  used  justly  or  unjustly.  Hence 
the  problem  of  riches  merges  into  a  problem  of  wages, 
or  just  payment  for  labor, — a  matter  of  capital 
importance,  as  Ruskin  was  well  aware.  In  one  way 
or  another,  it  involved  practically  every  large  social 
question  over  which  he  was  most  disturbed, — rela- 
tions between  the  employer  and  his  men,  conditions 
of  employment  and  kind  of  work,  and  scores  of  other 
matters  hardly  less  pressing  to-day  than  they  were  in 
the  decade  1 860-1 870.  Like  every  other  social 
reformer  and  idealist,  Ruskin  could  point  out  far 
more  difficulties  than  he  could  provide  solutions  for. 
But  no  other  man  of  that  day  had  a  surer  insight  into 
the  heart  of  the  situation,  or  expressed  his  opinions 
with  more  startling  audacity  and  more  telling  wit 
and  irony.  What  he  demanded  above  all  things  was 
justice.  An  unjust  wage  permitted  concentration  of 
riches  into  the  hands  of  few  and  checked  the  advance- 
ment of  the  worker;  while  a  just  wage  tended  to  the 
distribution  of  wealth  into  the  hands  of  many,  making 
it  easier  for  each  worker  to  rise  in  the  social  scale,  if 
he  chose  to  make  the  effort.^    Clearly  the  application 

joy,  of  admiration.  That  country  is  richest  which  nourishes  the  greatest 
number  of  noble  and  happy  human  beings;  that  man  is  richest  who,  hav- 
ing perfected  the  function  of  his  own  Hfe  to  the  utmost,  has  also  the  widest 
helpful  influence,  both  personal,  and  by  means  of  his  possessions,  over 
the  lives  of  others. "       (IForks,  XVII,  105.) 

*  "The  universal  and  constant  action  of  justice  in  this  matter  is  there- 
fore to  diminish  the  power  of  wealth,  in  the  hands  of  one  individual,  over 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        193 

of  human  values  to  the  scheme  of  things  in  the 
economic  world  threatened  to  work  havoc  with 
sacred  and  immutable  laws,  and  to  frighten  off  the 
specter  of  the  ^'economic  man"  as  the  bugaboo  of  a 
disordered  imagination!  In  opposition  to  the  dogma 
that  wages  were  measured  only  by  competition,  Rus- 
kin  at  the  outset  boldly  advocated  a  fixed  rate  of 
wages  for  definite  periods,  irrespective  of  demand  for 
labor.  To  provide  against  casual  employment  he 
furthei^urged  the  maintenance  of  "constant  numbers 
of  workmen,  whatever  may  be  the  accidental  demand 
for  the  article  they  produce."  ^  The  complicated 
business  of  the  world  must  in  time  be  so  adjusted, 
he  thought,  as  that  every  willing  worker  shall  have 
regularity  of  employment  and  contentment  in  it,  a 
consummation  only  to  be  reached  through  an  organ- 
ization of  labor  of  which  most  of  the  world  at  that 
time  had  no  vision. 

The  first  step,  however,  must  be  a  just  wage.  But 
what  is  a  just  wage? — Ruskin  asked.  Reduced  to  its 
simplest  terms,  the  law  of  justice  respecting  payment 
of  labor  is  "  time  for  time,  strength  for  strength,  and 
skill  for  skill.  ...  I  want  a  horseshoe  for  my  horse. 
Twenty  smiths,  or  twenty  thousand  smiths,  may  be 
ready  to  forge  it;  their  number  does  not  in  one  atom's 
weight  affect  the  question  of  the  equitable  payment 
of  the  one  who  does  forge  it.  It  costs  him  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  of  his  life,  and  so  much  skill  and  strength  of 
arm,  to  make  that  horseshoe  for  me.    Then  at  some 

masses  of  men,  and  to  distribute  it  through  a  chain  of  men."  {Works, 
XVII,  70.) 

»  Works,  XVII,  35. 


194  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

future  time  I  am  bound  in  equity  to  give  a  quarter  of 
an  hour,  and  some  minutes  more,  of  my  time  (or  of 
some  other  person's  at  my  disposal),  and  also  as  much 
strength  of  arm  and  skill,  and  a  little  more,  in  making 
or  doing  what  the  smith  may  have  need  of."  ^  ^'Does 
not  Ruskin,  in  such  words,  show  himself  blind  to  the 
plain  facts  of  life?"  we  ask.  ^ Is  his  labor  worth  no 
more  than  the  blacksmith's?  v([s  one  man's  time  as 
valuable  as  another's,  regardless  of  natural  gift  or 
skilljj  Or,  if  this  is  not  quite  the  correct  conclusion 
(since  a  just  wage  includes  payment  of  skill  for  skill), 
how  much  work  shall  a  carpenter  render  for  an  hour's 
work  of  a  trained  surgeon?  What  shall  a  poet  pay 
his  plumber  for  a  day's  time?  Both  cost  and  price 
are  of  course  inextricably  bound  up  with  these  ques- 
tions, since  cost,  or  the  quantity  of  labor  required  to 
produce  a  thing,  and  price,  or  the  exchange  value  of  a 
thing,  must  be  calculated  finally  in  terms  of  labor. 
Ruskin  recognized  the  problem  as  one  of  "consider- 
able complexity!"  But  he  hopelessly  complicated  it 
by  further  qualifications  and  distinctions.  He  did 
not  mean,  he  said,  to  confuse  kinds,  ranks,  and 
quantities  of  labor  with  its  qualities.  "I  never  said 
that  a  colonel  should  have  the  same  pay  as  a  private, 
nor  a  bishop  the  same  pay  as  a  curate.  Neitl^er  did  I 
say  that  more  work  ought  to  be  paid  as  less  work."  ^ 
He  then  introduced  a  distinction  between  "effort"  and 
*' labor," — labor  being  ''suffering  in  effort,"  whereas 
effort  by  itself  was  the  joyful  expenditure  of  humart 
energy  in  results  that  were  recreative.  On  the  basis 
of  these  differences,  "the  'cost*  of  the  mere  perfect- 

»  Works,  XVII,  66.  2  ihid.,  XVII,  7on. 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        195 

ness  of  touch  in  a  hammer-stroke  of  Donatello's,  or 
a  pencil-touch  of  Correggio's,  is  inestimable  by  any- 
ordinary  arithmetic."  *  But  even  at  this  point  Ruskin 
was  not  at  the  end  of  his  difficulties.  For  when  he 
undertook  to  define  a  unit  of  "labor"  in  terms  of  an 
hour's  or  a  day's  time,  he  was  confronted  with  a 
factor  in  the  problem  which  he  could  not  eliminate, 
even  though  the  orthodox  economists  could, — namely, 
that  "as  some  labor  is  more  destructive  of  life  than 
other  labor,  the  hour  or  day  of  the  more  destructive 
toil  is  supposed  to  include  proportionate  rest."  ^ 
Any  final  determination  of  a  just  wage,  therefore, 
must  have  involved  him  in  an  elaborate  analysis  of 
human  variables  and  of  conditions  of  toil  of  quite 
infinite   complexity. 

Nevertheless  Ruskin  could  not  get  rid  of  the  notion 
that  although  "the  worth  of  work  may  not  easily  be 
known,  it  has  a  worth  just  as  fixed  and  real  as  the 
specific  gravity  of  a  substance."  ^  The  platonism  of 
his  youth  still  clung  to  him!  He  hoped  to  get  back  to 
fixed  values  in  political  economy,  just  as  he  had  gone 
back  to  fixed  potentialities  of  beauty  in  the  data  of 
art.  Passionately  desiring  to  improve  the  conditions 
of  men,  he  allowed  too  much  for  the  stability  of  class 
differences  and  too  little  for  the  instability  of  human 
tastes  and  the  wide  variations  in  human  ability;  and 
he  likewise  left  out  of  account  the  principles  of  evo- 
lution as  applied  to  human  progress,  whereby  the 
values  of  things  change  with  the  changing  environ- 
ment and  ideals  of  man.  On  the  lines  he  followed 
there  would  seem  to  be  no  way  of  reducing  to  a  com- 

»  Works,  XVII,  1840.        » Ibid.y  XVII,  184.        » Ibid.,  XVII,  67. 


196  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

mon  denominator  the  various  kinds  of  labor.  The 
cost  of  a  surgeon's  operation  and  the  cost  of  a  cob- 
bler's repairing  are  incommensurables.  Not  until 
mankind  reaches  the  stage  when  an  hour's  work  of 
one  person  is  considered  the  full  equivalent  in  com- 
mercial value  of  an  hour's  work  of  any  other  person, 
regardless  of  rank  or  skill,  can  wages  be  determined 
on  the  basis  of  time  alone, — the  only  ultimately  just 
basis,  probably,  and  exactly  the  solution  that  Mr. 
Bernard  Shaw  reached  in  his  famous  debate  on 
Equality! 

But  it  is  no  doubt  unfair  to  criticise  "introductory 
statements"  as  though  they  were  final  principles. 
In  connection  with  his  social  philosophy,  the  main 
thing  to  note  at  this  point  is  that  Ruskin  made  a  bold 
frontal  attack  upon  the  accepted  dogmas  of  political 
economy,  and  led  the  fight  for  a  recognition  of  the 
human  factor  in  industry,  an  element  quite  disre- 
garded by  the  British  manufacturer.  As  Professor 
Hobson  says, "  Ruskin's  first  claim  as  a  social  reformer 
is  that  he  reformed  Political  Economy."  Ruskin  bent 
all  his  efforts  to  cast  the  money-changers  out  of  the 
temple.  He  denied  that  any  right  scheme  of  social 
action  could  be  founded  upon  a  faith  in  the  immutable 
selfishness  of  man,  with  cunning  or  violence  thrown 
into  the  scale,  when  necessary  to  obtain  advantage. 
He  denied  that  the  interests  of  masters  and  operatives 
were  antagonistic  and  that  expediency  was  the  only 
-guide  in  relations  between  them.  With  scornful 
irony  he  ridiculed  the  notion,  held  by  many,  that  the 
luxury  of  the  lord  in  his  palace  was  a  benefit  to  the 
poor, — pointing  out  the  inconsistency  of  upholding 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        197 

the  rich  because  they  benefited  society  by  drinking 
champagne  out  of  bottles,  while  condemning  the  poor 
because  they  drank  beer  out  of  buckets!  A  strange 
world  it  was  that  occupied  itself  in  piling  up  riches, 
whether  they  were  accumulated  at  the  cost  of  human 
life  or  in  the  conservation  of  it!  To  buy  in  the  cheap- 
est market  might  mean  ruin  to  honest  producers,  and 
to  sell  in  the  dearest  market,  death  to  needy  consum- 
ers. But  what  did  it  matter  to  John  Bull,  since 
commercial  operations  were  founded  not  upon  justice 
but  upon  legality? 

The  revolutionary  character  of  Ruskin's  attack 
upon  such  stock  notions  may  be  judged  from  a  few  of 
the  questions  which,  at  a  meeting  of  the  National 
Association  for  the  Promotion  of  Social  Science,  he 
"  thought  should  be  put  to  eminent  professors  of 
political  economy  on  behalf  of  the  working  men  of 
England:" — 

(i)  "Supposing  that,  in  the  present  state  of 
England,  capital  is  necessary,  are  capitalists  so? 
In  other  words,  is  it  needful  for  right  operation 
of  capital  that  it -should  be  administered  under 
the  arbitrary  power  of  one  person?" 

(2)  "Whence  is  all  capital  first  derived?" 

(3)  "  If  capital  is  spent  in  paying  wages  for 
labor  or  manufacture  which  brings  no  return  (as 
the  labor  of  an  acrobat  or  manufacturer  of  fire- 
works), is  such  capital  lost  or  not?  and  if  lost, 
what  is  the  effect  of  such  loss  on  the  future 
wages  fund?  " 

(4)  "If  under  such  circumstances  it  is  lost, 
and  can  only  be  recovered  (much  more  recovered 


198  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN  / 

with  interest)  when  it  has  been  spent  in  wages 
for  productive  labor  or  manufacture,  what 
labors  and  manufactures  are  productive,  and 
what  are  unproductive?  Do  all  capitalists  know 
the  difference?  and  are  they  always  desirous  to 
employ  men  in  productive  labors  and  manufac- 
tures, and  in  these  only?" 

(5)  "  Considering  the  unemployed  and  pur- 
chasing public  as  a  great  capitalist,  employing 
the  workmen  and  their  masters  both,  what 
results  happen  finally  to  thi&  purchasing  public  if 
it  employs  all  its  manufacturers  in  unproductive 
labor?  and  what  if  it  employs  them  all  in  pro- 
ductive labor? " 

(6)  "  'If  any  man  will  not  work,  neither  shall 
he  eat.'  Does  this  law  apply  to  all  classes  of 
society?"  ^ 

Reviewers  assailed  Ruskin  for  the  "effeminate 
sentimentality"  of  a  political  economy  like  this.  He 
retorted  that  political  economy  was  impossible  except 
"under  certain  conditions  of  moral  culture.".  The 
whole  weight  of  his  argument,  consequently,  rested 
upon  a  different  set  of  premises,  an  unshakablejcon- 
viction  that  every  principle  and  practice  of  commer- 
cial and  industrial  activity  must  be  subjected  to  the 
test  of  its  effect  upon  life,  and  that  human  nature,  at 
bottom  not  predatory  but  affectionate,  "can  be 
altered  by  human  forethought."  "All  effort  in  social 
improvement  is  paralysed,"  he  said,  "because  no  one 
has  been  bold  enough  or  clear-sighted  enough  to  put 
and  press  home  this  radical  question:  *  What  is  indeed 

1  fVorks,  XVII,  537-8. 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        199 

the  noblest  tone  and  reach  of  life  for  men;  and  how 
can  the  possibility  of  it  be  extended  to  the  greatest 
numbers?*  It  is  answered,  broadly  and  rashly,  that 
wealth  is  good;  that  art  is  good;  that  luxury  is  good. 
Whereas  some  of  them  are  good  in  the  abstract,  but 
good  if  only  rightly  received.  Nor  have  any  steps 
whatever  been  yet  securely  taken, — nor,  otherwise 
than  in  the  resultless  rhapsody  of  moralists, — to  as- 
certain what  luxuries  and  what  learning  it  is  either 
kind  to  bestow,  or  wise  to  desire."  ^  By  insisting, 
therefore,  that  man  is  a  creature  with  loyalties  and 
affections  that  can  be  appealed  to,  and  that  the  aim  of 
political  economy  is  the  lifting  of  life  to  the  highest 
standard,  Ruskin  rightly  held  that  he  builded  upon 
fact  and  not  upon  sentiment.  Assured  of  the  solidity 
of  his  foundation,  he  went  forward  with  plans  that 
meant  radical  changes  in  the  entire  structure  of 
economic  thought.  Political  economy  in  the  future 
must  be  regarded  not  merely  as  a  science  of  getting^ 
but  also  as  a  science  of  spending;  since  just  distribu- 
tion and  right  consumption  are  the  real  tests,  of^ 
production.  Twenty  people  can  gain  money  for  one 
who  can  use  it,  and  the  vital  question  for  individual 
and  for  nation  is,  never,  "  how  much  do  they  make?" 
but  ''  to  what  purpose  do  they  spend?"  ^  And  there- 
fore the  products  of  your  industry  can  never  be  justly 
distributed  or  wisely  consumed,  Ruskin  argued,  if  you 
do  not  all  the  while  take  into  account  the  nature  of 
the  consumer  as  well  as  of  the  thing  consumed;  just 
as  you  must  in  production  consider  the  effect  of  the 
thing  produced  upon  the  workman  as  well  as  its  value 

1  Works,  VII,  430.  » Ibid.,  XVII,  98. 


200  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

for  the  market.  Otherwise  your  political  economy 
remains  a  mere  bandying  of  empty  formulas  and  a 
piling  up  of  useless  statistics. 

Ruskin  was  accordingly  determined  to  let  Into  this 
dismal  science  the  light  of  ethical  principles,  to  widen 
its  scope,  and  to  appeal  first  of  all  to  men  as  indi- 
viduals to  obey  the  laws  of  justice  and  love.  (Of  the 
worker  he  demanded  honesty,  industry,  frugality.^ 
**Do  good  work,  like  a  soldier  at  his  post,"  he  said  in 
substance,  *' whether  you  live  or  die.  Have  an  inter- 
est in  being  something  as  well  as  in  getting  something. 
Be  less  anxious  to  rise  out  of  your  station  than  to  per- 
fect yourself  within  it.  Remember  that  no  political 
arrangements  nor  privileges  can  lift  up  loafers  and 
drunkards,  lechers  and  brutes."  He  called  upon  the 
(  consumer  to  demand  the  products  of  healthy  and 
ennobling  labor,  and  to  sacrifice  "such  convenience, 
or  beauty,  or  cheapness  as  is  to  be  got  only  by  the 
degradation  of  the  workman,  j^  His  appeal  to  the 
captains  of  industry  was  no  less  direct  and  concrete. 
On  the  one  hand  they  must  be  faithful  to  their  engage- 
ments,— the  corner-stone  of  commerce, — and  they 
must  at  all  costs  maintain  "the  perfection  and 
purity"  of  their  goods.  On  the  other,  as  masters  of 
large  groups  of  men,{they  were  to  assume  responsibil- 
ity for  the  individual  and  associated  life  of  these  men 
while  in  their  employ,  seeing  to  it  that  employment 
was  beneficial  and  not  harmful. ^  Ruskin's  vision,  like 
Carlyle's,  carried  him  forward  to  a  time  when  the 
merchant  should  be  as  honored  as  the  soldier,  when 
indeed  it  should  be  a  more  sacred  calling  to  provide 

1  Works,  X,  196. 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        201 

for  the  life  of  a  nation  in  peace  than  to  imperil  it  with 
death  in  war.  In  that  day  the  captains  of  industry, 
like  the  captains  of  war  now,  would  be  leaders,  by 
reason  of  ability  and  self-sacrifice,  not  by  reason  of 
privilege  and  fortune;  while  the  public  would  be 
prompt  to  bestow  upon  them  a  recognition  and 
reward  commensurate  with  their  efforts. 

A  consummation  like  this,  however,  could  not  be 
realized  by  individual  effort  alone.  The  modern 
world  was  too  complicated  and  too  interrelated. 
Half  the  troubles,  in  fact,  as  matters  already  stood 
was  that  even  good  men  were  pulling  in  contrary 
directions.  Patterns  of  unselfishness  in  their  private 
relations,  perhaps,  they  conducted  their  business  on 
the  maleficent  principle  of  competition,  whereby, 
each  regarded  his  neighbor's  interest  as  in  collision 
with  his  own.  To  Ruskin  this  was  wrong  through 
and  through.  It  meant  that  man  was  a  beast  of  prey. 
It  assumed  the  calculating  cultivation  of  his  worst 
instincts,  and  it  meant  the  final  triumph  of  anarchy 
over  law.  In  the  presence  of  the  vast  mutual  depend- 
encies of  modern  commerce,  the  self-centered  utilita- 
rianism of  Adam  Smith  and  Bentham,  always  false, 
now  became  even  worse, — it  became  criminal  folly, 
for  it  gave  support  to  the  most  dangerous  conditions 
in  the  social  order,  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  pov- 
erty and  the  complete  separation  of  masters  and 
men.  In  reality,  said  Ruskin,  the  management  of  a 
great  industry,  or  even  of  a  great  state,  should  rest 
upon  exactly  the  same  elementary  principles  as  those 
which  obtained  in  a  household  or  upon  a  ship,  where 
success  was  unthinkable  without  co-operation.     In- 


202  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

dividual  eflFort  was  indispensable,  but  it  was  far  from 
enough.  Big  business  meant  the  accumulation  and 
concentration  of  wealth  to  such  a  degree,  and  involved 
the  association  of  workmen  to  such  an  extent,  that 
only  through  collective  effort  could  economic  and 
social  reform  be  realized; — a  conclusion  recognized 
everywhere  to-day,  but  regarded  as  revolutionary  in 
1864.  Without  knowing,  therefore,  how  far  or  in 
what  directions  his  gospel  might  be  destined  to  go, 
Ruskin  preached  co-operation  as  a  necessary  basis  of 
reconstruction,  calling  upon  the  masters  of  each 
industry  "not  to  try  to  undersell  each  other,  nor  seek 
to  get  each  other's  business,  but  to  form  one  society, 
selling  to  the  public  under  a  common  law  of  severe 
penalty  for  unjust  dealing,  at  an  established  price;" 
and  calling  upon  the  workers  to  cast  their  toil  more 
and  more  "into  social  and  communicative  systems", 
somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the  medieval  guilds,  for 
mutual  support  and  protection.  "Government  and 
Co-operation,"  he  said,  "are  in  all  things  the  Laws  of 
Life;  Anarchy  and  Competition  the  Laws  of  Death."  1^$ 

At  this  point,  accordingly,  his  political  economy 
broadened  out  into  social  economy,  or  into  a  discus- 
sion of  the  varied  problems  of  human  welfare  in  a 
complex  social  order.  After  the  forced  interruptions 
of  Unto  This  Last  and  Munera  Pulveris^  Ruskin  gave 
up  all  attempt  to  set  his  economic  theories  into  fixed 
order,  and  abandoned  himself  more  than  ever  to  a 
discursive  treatment  of  all  the  questions  that  pressed 
upon  him.  No  subject  was  henceforth  treated  exten- 
sively by  itself.    It  was  taken  up,  dropped,  taken  up 

^  Works,  XVII,  317,  75- 


THE  ART  IMPULSE  IN  INDUSTRY        203 

again,  and  in  the  end  perhaps  left  in  a  tentative  and 
unfinished  state.  Economics,  ethics,  education, 
politics,  schemes  of  social  reconstruction,  Utopian 
commonwealths,  accounts  of  actual  experiments 
jostle  one  another  throughout  Time  and  Tide^  Fors 
Clavigera^  and  the  later  lectures.  And  yet  in  these 
discursive  writings  is  to  be  found  a  large  number  of 
brilliant  and  pregnant  suggestions  for  a  new  order, 
constituting  on  the  whole  the  most  fruitful  side  of 
Ruskin's  social  philosophy,  apart  from  the  funda- 
mental principle  with  which  we  began  the  present 
chapter, — the  conservation  of  the  individual  by  means 
of  the  creative  impulse.  Without  pretending  to  be 
exhaustive,  we  shall  therefore  in  the  next  chapter 
endeavor  to  bring  into  connection  these  scattered 
schemes  and  suggestions  of  reform,  concluding  with  a 
brief  account  of  his  adventures  into  Utopia. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE 

"As  we  advance  in  our  social  knowledge,  we  shall  en- 
deavor to  make  our  government  paternal  as  well  as 
judicial;  that  is,  to  establish  such  laws  and  authorities  as 
may  at  once  (direct  us  in  our  occupations,  ^4>rotect  us 
against  our  folliesjfand  visit  us  in  our  distress :i/a  govern- 
ment which  shall  repress  dishonesty,  as  it  now  punishes 
theft;  which  shall  show  how  the  discipline  of  the  masses 
may  be  brought  to  aid  the  toils  of  peace,  as  discipline  of 
the  masses  has  hitherto  knit  the  sinews  of  battle;  a  govern- 
ment which  shall  have  its  soldiers  of  the  ploughshare  as 
well  as  its  soldiers  of  the  sword,  and  which  shall  distribute 
more  proudly  its  golden  crosses  of  industry — golden  as 
the  glow,  of  the  harvest, — than  now  it  grants  its  bronze 
crosses  of  honor — bronzed  with  the  crimson  of  blood." — 
Ruskin. 

Part  I — Social  Ideals 

To  begin  with,  Ruskin  insisted  upon  the  right  of 
every  child  to  be  well  born.  He  looked  to  a  future 
when  nations  would  give  "some  of  the  attention  to 
the  conditions  affecting  the  race  of  men,  which  it  has 
hitherto  bestowed  only  on  those  which  may  better 
its  races  of  cattle."  ^  To  this  end  marriage  must  be 
regulated.  Permission  to  marry  should  be  a  public 
attestation  of  the  fact  that  youth  and  maid  had  lived 
rightly  and  had  attained  such  skill  "in  their  proper 
handicraft  and  in  the  arts  of  household  economy," 
as  to  insure  good  hope  that  they  would  be  able  "  to 
maintain     and     teach     their    children."      Without 

»  Works,  XVII,  420. 

204. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  205 

accepting  in  detail  many  of  Ruskin's  fantastic  ideas 
upon  this  subject,  most  thoughtful  persons  to-day 
would  agree  with  him  in  principle,  namely,  that  the 
young  couples  who  measure  up  to  these  standards 
should,  where  necessary,  be  kept  in  employment  at 
the  expense  of  the  state  during  the  years  of  stress, 
when  they  were  finding  their  way  in  a  complex  social 
order.  For  upon  purity  of  birth  everything  else  must 
depend.  Without  it  there  could  be  no  real  elevation 
in  the  life  of  the  state,  whether  corporate  or  indi- 
vidual. 

Until  communities  saw  to  it  that  a  child  was  well 
born  they  could  not  be  certain  that  it  would  be  well 
educated.  And  without  education  as  its  foundation 
Ruskin's  structure  of  social  reform  would  of  course 
have  nothing  to  stand  upon.  "There  is  only  one  cure 
of  public  distress,"  he  said,  "and  that  is  a  public 
education,  directed  to  make  men  thoughtful,  merciful, 
and  just."  ^  State  regulation  of  education  was  there- 
fore as  important  as  state  regulation  of  marriage. 
"I  hold  it  for  indisputable,"  he  insisted,  "that  the 
first  duty  of  a  state  is  to  see  that  every  child  therein 
shall  be  well  housed,  clothed,  fed,  and  educated,  till 
it  attain  years  of  discretion."  ^  With  an  insight  like 
that  of  Pestalozzi  or  Froebel,  Ruskin  understood  the 
awakening  potentialities  of  childhood,  waiting  upon 
guidance  towards  fine  issues  or  base.  "The  human 
soul  in  youth,"  he  wrote,  "is  not  a  machine  of  which 
you  can  polish  the  cogs  with  any  kelp  or  brickdust 
near  at  hand;  and,  having  got  it  into  working  order, 
and  good,  empty,  and  oiled  serviceableness,  start 
1  Works,  XVIII,  107.  2  Ihid.,  XI,  263. 


2o6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

your  immortal  locomotive,  at  twenty-five  years  old 
or  thirty,  express  from  the  Strait  gate,  on  the 
Narrow  Road.  /The  whole  period  of  youth  is  one 
essentially  of  formation,  edification,  instruction;  I 
use  the  words  with  their  weight  in  them;  intaking 
of  stores,  establishment  in  vital  habits,  hopes,  and 
faiths.  There  is  not  an  hour  of  it  but  is  trembling 
with  destinies, — not  a  moment  of  which,  once  past, 
the  appointed  work  can  ever  be  done  again,  or  the 
neglected  blow  struck  on  cold  iron."  ^  As  this  passage 
implies,  education  for  Ruskin  did  not  mean  erudition. 
Pouring  in  facts,  however  well  sifted  and  ordered, 
does  not  educate  a  mind,  unless  the  facts  are  so 
related  to  the  child's  nature  as  to  evoke  from  it  right 
conduct.  "You  do  not  educate  a  man  by  telling  him 
what  he  knew  not,  but  my  making  him  what  he  was 
not."  2  At  every  step  of  the  process,  from  beginning 
to  end,  \Ruskin  would  have  the  training  of  youth 
regulated  by  ethical  ideals?  getting  knowledge  should 
mean  getting  the  right  knowledge;  reading  books,  the 
right  books;  learning  a  trade,  learning  to  do  some- 
thing not  only  consistent  with  one's  health  and 
capacities  but  also  "serviceable  to  other  creatures." 
The  sympathies  and  tastes  of  the  child  must  be 
cultivated  with  as  much  attention  as  the  knowing 
faculties,  since  a  person's  usefulness  in  life  will 
depend  upon  his  attitude  towards  society  and  towards 
his  own  work  in  it,  no  less  than  upon  his  intellectual 
capacity  or  technical  skill   taken  by  itself.^     True 

»  Works,  VI,  485. 

^Ibid.,  XVII,  232. 

^  Ruskin  summarized  the  teaching  and  practice  of  his  life  in  the  brilhant 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  207 

education  must  not  only  be  moral,  in  this  broad  sense. 
(It  must  also  sift  men  according  to  their  capacities^ 
and  the  work  they  are  to  do;  the  differences  among  all 
men  being  "eternal  and  irreconcilable,  between  one 
individual  and  another,  born  under  absolutely  the 
same  circumstances."     Ruskin  carried  these  general 
principles   yet   one   step   further   and   insisted   that 
individual  training  must  in  the  end  be  so  ordered  as 
that  men  shall  find  contentment  in  the  lower  callings     \ 
when  they  are  without  capacity  for  the  higher, — a 
consummation  which  could  be  realized  (as  Ruskin  0 
knew)  only  as  a  result  of  changes  in  the  social  con-    i  lO^ 
sciousness  towards  certain  kinds  of  labor.     Let  the  / 
chance  of  advancement  in  station  be  extended  to  all, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  but  let  it  be  understood  that      ' 
education  is  itself  advancement  in  life,  that  it  should 
be  rather  a  means  of  getting  on  with  one's  work  than 
of  climbing  up  in  the  world,  and  that  it  is  better  to    / 
train  a  man  to  be  more  expert  in  his  trade  than  to    | 
inspire  him  with  discontent,  because,  by  reason  of 
natural  ability,  he  must  remain  there. 

Ruskin  of  course  made  no  attempt  to  propose  any- 
thing so  definite  as  a  curriculum  for  the  realization  of 
these  principles.  And  yet  with  characteristic  au- 
dacity he  threw  out  a  great  number  of  suggestions, 
remarkable  on  the  whole  for  their  wisdom,  and  still 
more  remarkable  in  the  decades  1 860-1 880  as  bril- 

aphorism  on  education  quoted  in  a  previous  chapter:  "The  entire  object 
of  true  education  is  to  make  people  not  merely  do  the  right  things,  but 
enjoy  the  right  things: — not  merely  industrious,  but  to  love  industry — not 
merely  learned,  but  to  love  knowledge — not  merely  pure,  but  to  love 
purity — not  merely  just,  but  to  hunger  and  thirst  after  justice."  {fForks, 
XVIII,  43S) 


2o8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

liant  anticipations  of  the  future — Ruskin's  future 
and  ours.  "There  are,  indeed,"  he  said,  "certain 
elements  of  education  which  are  ahke  necessary  to 
the  inhabitants  of  every  spot  of  earth.  Cleanliness, 
obedience,  the  first  laws  of  music,  mechanics,  and 
geometry,  the  primary  facts  of  geography  and  astron- 
omy, and  the  outlines  of  history,  should  evidently  be 
taught  alike  to  poor  and  rich,  to  sailor  and  shepherd, 
to  laborer  and  shopboy.  But  for  the  restjfthe  effi- 
ciency of  any  school  will  be  found  to  increase  exactly 
in  the  ratio  of  its  direct  adaptation  to  the  circum- 
stances of  the  children  it  receives;  and  the  quantity  of 
knowledge  to  be  attained  in  a  given  time  being  equal, 
its  value  will  depend  on  the  possibilities  of  its  instant 
application!)  You  need  not  teach  botany  to  sons  of 
fishermen,  architecture  to  shepherds,  or  painting  to 
colliers;  still  less  the  elegances  of  grammar  to  children 
who  throughout  the  probable  course  of  their  total 
lives  will  have,  or  ought  to  have,  little  to  say,  and 
nothing  to  write."  ^  The  program  thus  outlined 
includes  the  elements  of  both  liberal  and  technical 
training,  and  is  elsewhere  described  in  detail.  The 
laws  of  health  came  first.  The  schools  of  St.  George 
were  to  be  built  in  the  country,  in  the  midst  of  large 
spaces  of  land,  where  children  should  have  plenty  of 
fresh  air  and  room  for  all  kinds  of  healthful  exercises. 
Children  next  were  to  be  taught  reverence,  compas- 
sion, and  truth:  reverence  for  what  was  most  worthy 
"in  human  deeds  and  human  passion  ";  compassion, 
so  that  "it  shall  be  held  as  shameful  to  have  done  a 
cruel  thing  as  a  cowardly  one";  truth,  so  that  a  boy 

'fForks,  XXIX,  495. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  209 

shall  have  as  intense  a  purpose  "to  think  of  things  as 
they  truly  are,  as  to  see  them  as  they  truly  are," 
so  far  as  in  him  lies.^  Ruskin  would  also  require 
music  and  dancing  of  all, — music  to  include  the 
learning  of  the  best  poetry  by  heart.  It  was  of 
course  consistent  with  his  social  philosophy  that  he 
should  attach  the  highest  importance  to  the  aesthetic 
training  of  the  child.  He  wished  to  see  bare  and 
bleak  schoolhouses  transformed  into  attractive  cen- 
ters of  study  by  means  of  beautiful  surroundings, 
without  and  within. ^  "We  shall  not  succeed,"  he 
said,  "in  making  a  peasant's  opinion  good  evidence 
on  the  merits  of  the  Elgin  marbles;  yet  I  believe  we 
may  make  art  a  means  of  giving  him  helpful  and 
happy  pleasure,  and  of  -gaining  for  him  serviceable 
knowledge."  ^ 

With  these  elements,  physical,  ethical,  and  aes- 
thetic, as  foundations,  every  boy  and  girl  should  be 
taught  manual  training,  politics,  religion,  mathe- 
matics, natural  science,  and  history.  Respecting  the 
last  three  branches,  Ruskin  made  a  curious  and 
suggestive  provision:  "Your  schools,"  he  said,  "will 
require  to  be  divided  into  three  groups:  one  for 
children  who  will  probably  have  to  live  in  cities,  one 
for  those  who  will  live  in  the  country,  and  one  for 
those  who  will  live  at  sea;  the  schools  for  these  last,  of 
course,  being  always  placed  on  the  coast.     And  for 

•  Works,  XVII,  398-9. 

*  Ruskin  had  definite  ideas  on  the  socialization  of  art.  He  advocated 
not  only  the  collection  of  art  in  public  galleries  and  in  all  private  homes, 
"as  a  means  of  refinm«  the  habits  and  touching  the  hearts  of  the  niasses 
of  the  nation  in  their  domestic  life"  (Works,  XVI,  8i),  but  urged  the  use 
of  art  for  school  rooms,  guild-halls,  almshouses  and  hospitals. 

»  Works,  XVI,  144. 


2IO  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

children  whose  life  is  to  be  in  cities,  the  subjects  of 
study  should  be,  as  far  as  their  disposition  will  allow 
of  it,  mathematics  and  the  arts;  for  children  who  are 
to  live  in  the  country,  natural  history  of  birds,  insects, 
and  plants,  together  with  agriculture  taught  practi- 
cally; and  for  children  who  are  to  be  seamen,  physical 
geography,  astronomy,  and  the  natural  history  of  sea 
fish  and  sea  birds."  ^  General  training  was  thus 
always  to  be  followed  by  special  training,  in  obedience 
to  the  principle  that^ouths  are  to  be  placed  "accord- 
ing to  their  capacities  in  the  occupations  for  which 
they  are  fitted)"  jpovernment,  therefore,  should  pro- 
vide schools  for  every  trade^  and  in  order  to  discover 
what  youths  in  given  localities  possess  special  skill  in 
one  or  another  of  the  arts  and  crafts,  "schools  of 
trial"  should  be  established  in  these  communities 
at  state  expense.  Ruskin's  whole  conception  of  edu- 
cation was  thus  shot  through  with  the  conviction 
that  training  must  have  (constant  regard  for  social 
ends.\  This  was  a  pioneer  and  iconoclastic  concep- 
tion Tor  the  England  of  his  time.  He  contended  that 
a  boy  was  not  educated  merely  because  he  "could 
write  Latin  verses  and  construe  a  Greek  chorus." 
He  contended  that  science  for  schools  (and  science 
was  just  being  introduced  into  the  higher  curricula) 
should  have  less  to  do  with  theories  and  more  with 
realities:  botany  should  deal  with  the  plant  life 
around  the  students,  and  chemistry  should  teach 
them  "to  find  out  whether  the  wa.ter  is  wholesome  in 
the  back-kitchen  cistern,  or  whether  the  seven  acre 
field  wants  sand  or  chalk."  ^  In  short  he  demanded 
1  fForks,  XVII,  400.  *  Ibid.,  XVI,  1 12. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  211 

for  every  youth  a  full  and  harmonious  co-ordination 
of  his  life  with  the  life  of  the  community  in  which  he 
was  destined  to  live,  such  as  no  system  of  education 
has  realized  even  to  the  present  day.^  v 

Ruskin  was  fully  alive  to  the  effects  of  such  an 
educational  program  upon  position  in  life  and  upon 
the  problem  of  debasing  labor.  He  faced  the  issues 
more  squarely  than  reformers  of  his  type  are  wont  to 
do.  Will  a  boy,  he  asked,  who  has  been  educated 
according  to  the  foregoing  program  wish  to  be  a 
tailor  or  a  coalheaver?  Some  of  his  readers  and 
correspondents  argued  that  among  well-educated 
boys  there  would  remain  a  percentage  "constitution- 
ally inclined  to  be  cobblers,  or  looking  forward  with 

1  Ruskin's  ideas  on  education  are  a  chapter  by  themselves.  Various 
writers  have  called  attention  to  the  richness  of  his  suggestions  and  to  their 
connection  with  the  aims  and  principles  of  educational  reformers.  Rus- 
kin, it  will  be  remembered,  was  anything  but  a  closet  theorist.  He  was 
always  interested  in  the  practical  work  of  the  schoolroom,  as  shown  in  his 
frequent  visits  to  the  school  at  Coniston,  and  in  his  relations  with  a  school 
for  girls  at  Winnington  Hall,  Cheshire,  and  with  the  Whitlands  Training 
College  for  Girls  at  Chelsea,  where  he  made  many  visits  and  did  much  to 
encourage  the  pupils  in  various  activities,  such  as  dancing,  drawing,  and 
festival-making.  Then,  of  course,  he  was  Slade  Professor  of  Fine  Arts  at 
Oxford  for  many  years,  and  for  four  or  five  years  taught  drawing  classes 
at  the  Working  Men's  College,  London. 

Ruskin  was  always  very  strongly  opposed  to  the  examination  system 
:n  schools.  "The  madness  of  the  modern  cram  and  examination  system 
arises  principally  out  of  the  struggle  to  get  lucrative  places;  but  partly  also 
out  of  the  radical  block-headism  of  supposing  that  all  men  are  naturally 
equal,  and  can  only  make  their  way  by  elbowing; — the  facts  being  that 
every  child  is  born  with  an  accurately  defined  and  absolutely  limited 
capacity;  that  he  is  naturally  (if  able  at  all)  able  for  some  things  and 
unable  for  others;  that  no  effort  and  no  teaching  can  add  one  particle 
to  the  granted  ounces  of  his  available  brains;  that  by  competition  he  may 
paralyse  or  pervert  his  faculties,  but  cannot  stretch  them  a  line;  and  that 
the  entire  grace,  happiness,  and  virtue  of  his  life  depend  on  his  content- 
ment in  doing  what  he  can,  dutifully,  and  in  staying  where  he  is,  peace- 
ably." (^of)t/,  XXIX,  496.) 


212  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

unction  to  establishment  in  the  oil  or  tallow  line,  or 
fretting  themselves  for  a  flunkey's  uniform."  ^  But 
Ruskin  did  not  read  man's  life  in  this  way,  although 
few  writers  have  more  emphatically  declared  their 
fixed  faith  in  the  unconquerable  differences  in  the 
clay  of  the  human  creature.  The  effect  of  an  educa- 
tional system  that  reached  down  to  the  masses  and 
touched  every  life  there  would  be,  he  thought,  to 
reduce  the  wide  differences  in  bodily  and  mental 
capacity,  so  that  "in  a  few  generations,  if  the  poor 
were  cared  for,  their  marriages  looked  after,  and 
sanitary  law  enforced,"  the  old  gin-drinking,  criminal 
type  would  begin  to  disappear,  while  a  new  type 
would  emerge,  healthy,  progressive,  and  with  no 
disposition  to  be  fettered  like  slaves  to  a  life  of  monot- 
onous toil. 2  Although  brought  up  in  the  lap  of 
luxury  himself,  Ruskin  well  knew  the  effect  of  rough 
work  upon  a  man.  "The  man,"  he  said,  "who  has 
been  heaving  clay  out  of  a  ditch  all  day,  or  driving  an 
express  train  against  the  north  wind  all  night,  or 
holding  a  collier's  helm  in  a  gale  on  a  lee  shore,  or 
whirling  white-hot  iron  at  a  furnace  mouth,  is  not 
the  same  man  at  the  end  of  his  day,  or  night,  as  one 
who  has  been  sitting  in  a  quiet  room,  with  everything 
comfortable  about  him,  reading  books,  or  classing 
butterflies,  or  painting  pictures."  ^    How  shall  these 

1  Works,  XVII,  405. 

^  "Crime  can  only  be  truly  hindered  by  letting  no  man  grow  up  a 
criminal — by  taking  away  the  will  to  commit  sin;  not  by  mere  punishment 
of  its  commission.  Crime,  great  and  small,  can  only  be  truly  stayed  by 
education — not  the  education  of  the  intellect  only,  which  is,  on  some  men, 
wasted,  and  for  others  mischievous;  but  education  of  the  heart,  which  is 
alike  good  and  necessary  for  all."     {JVorks,  XW\,  392.) 

3  JVorks,  XVIII,  417. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  213 

lower  jobs  be  done  when  men  are  better  educated  and 
desire  time  to  sit  in  a  quiet  room  for  the  cultivation  of 
intellectual  and  aesthetic  interests?  After  all,  should 
not  education  be  denied  to  some  people  in  order  that 
they  may  be  kept  in  slavery  for  the  lowest  work,  in 
accordance  with  Plato's  scheme  in  his  Republic? 
This  has  been  the  traditional  faith  and  the  traditional 
solution  among  the  conservative  and  aristocratic 
classes  in  all  ages,  including  our  own.  Ruskin  was 
himself  a  Tory,  and  medievalism  ran  in  his  blood,  but 
he  could  not  endure  a  system  that  kept  men,  capable 
of  better  things,  in  involuntary  servitude.  Accord- 
ingly he  attacked  the  labor  problem  from  several 
different  angles,  and  especially  from  the  point  of  view 
of  one  who  profoundly  believed  in  education  for  all. 

As  we  shall  see  again  in  connection  with  his  guild- 
idea,  he  believed  in  fixed  wages,  for  fixed  periods, 
settled  not  by  the  law  of  competition,  but  by  the  law 
of  justice;  and  he  believed  in  an  eight-hour  day  for 
all  workers  as  a  minimum.  These  principles  were 
fundamental  and  should,  he  thought,  be  universal. 
But  it  was  possible  to  go  much  further.  Let  the 
demand  for  foolish  luxuries  and  for  the  products  of 
debasing  employment  be  greatly  diminished.  Re- 
peatedly Ruskin  pointed  out  that  luxuries  must  be 
paid  for  by  labor  withdrawn  from  the  production  of 
useful  things,  such  as  food  and  clothing.  Society 
should  curb  its  extravagance,  at  least  until  "all  the 
poor  are  comfortably  housed  and  fed."  Foul  and 
mechanical  work,  too,  could  actually  be  lowered  to  a 
minimum,  if  people  would  consistently  refuse  to 
demand  its  products.     "It  is  the  duty  of  all  persons 


214  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

in  higher  stations  of  life  by  every  means  in  their 
power,"  he  said,  "to  diminish  their  demand  for  work 
of  such  kind,  and  to  live  with  as  little  aid  from  the  lower 
trades,  as  they  can  possibly  contrive."  ^  In  this 
connection  he  never  neglected  an  opportunity  to 
urge  people,  when  buying  objects  of  art,  to  buy  only 
those  which  were  the  creations  of  thoughtful,  and  not 
of  mechanical,  labor.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  Ruskin 
himself  could  not  enjoy  a  beautiful  thing  when  he 
knew  that  it  was  the  product  of  debasing  toil.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  loved  so  much  the  evidence  of  a  free, 
happy  mind  in  work  that  he  no  doubt  often  over- 
estimated the  values  of  what  in  reality  was  often 
crude  and  unlovely.  But  his  principle  was  sound. 
Get  the  happy  workman  first,  he  argued,  and  you  will 
get  better  art  in  the  end  if  not  in  the  beginning.  "  Let 
us  remember,  that  every  farthing  we  spend  on  objects 
of  art  has  influence  over  men's  minds  and  spirits, 
far  more  than  over  their  bodies.  By  the  purchase  of 
every  print  which  hangs  on  your  walls,  of  every  cup 
out  of  which  you  drink,  and  every  table  off*  which  you 
eat  your  bread,  you  are  educating  a  mass  of  men  in 
one  way  or  another.  You  are  either  employing  them 
healthily  or  unwholesomely;  you  are  making  them 
lead  happy  or  unhappy  lives;  you  are  leading  them  to 
took  at  Nature,  and  to  love  her — to  think,  to  feel, 
to  enjoy, — or  you  are  blinding  them  to  Nature,  and 
keeping  them  bound,  like  beasts  of  burden,  in  me- 
chanical and  monotonous  employments,"  ^ 

^  Works,  XVII,  423. 

^  Ibid.,  XII,  68.  It  may  be  worth  noting  that  Ruskin  recognized 
certain  kinds  of  work  as  debasing  and  "mechanical": — "simply  or  totally 
manual  work;  that,  alone,  is  degrading"  (XVII,  423):  forging,  "unclean, 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  215 

Ruskin  would  not  only  substitute  so  far  as  possible 
the  products  of  happy  labor  for  the  products  of  ser- 
vile labor, — he  would,  by  a  change  of  attitude  in  the 
entire  social  consciousness,  elevate  many  kinds  of 
work  to  positions  of  dignity.  Any  necessary  work  is 
noble,  if  we  only  think  it  so  and  rightly  honor  the 
loyal  worker.  The  toil  of  the  miner  or  stoker  would 
be  lightened  if  he  received  recognition  from  a  grateful 
public,  not  merely  in  a  just  wage,  but  in  some  badge 
of  service  that  should  give  him  a  place  in  the  hearts  of 
people,  like  that  of  the  brave  sailor  or  soldier.  We 
dishonor  the  worker  when  we  dishonor  his  work. 
Ruskin  knew  that  the  art-motive  could  not  be  put 
into  every  kind  of  employment,  but  he  saw  the  possi- 
bility of  offsetting  the  influence  of  education  upon 
lower  callings  by  a  change  of  mind  toward  these 
callings.  With  cunning  irony  yet  with  an  under- 
current of  serious  intention,  he  argued  that  servile 
work  if  undertaken  in  a  serious  spirit  might  be  the 
holiest  of  all  and  that  therefore  evangelicals  and 
ritualists  might  perform  such  work  as  evidence  of  the 
sincerity  of  their  Christianity!  "Let  the  market 
have  its  martyrdoms  as  well  as  the  pulpit,  and  the 
trade  its  heroisms  as  well  as  war!"  Ruskin  indeed 
proposed  that  the  merchant's  work  should  be  made  a 
liberal  profession  like  the  lawyer's  and  physician's, 
demanding    like    them    its    peculiar    sacrifices    and 

noisome,  or  paltry  manufactures,  various  kinds  of  transport, — and  the 
conditions  of  menial  service"  (XVII,  428):  "all  work  with  fire  is  more  or 
less  harmful  and  degrading;  so  also  mine,  or  machine  labor"  (VII,  ^fjn.): 
"  a  great  number  of  quite  necessary  employments  are,  in  the  accuratest 
sense,  'Servile';  that  is,  they  sink  a  man  to  the  condition  of  a  serf,  or  un- 
thinking worker,  the  proper  state  of  an  animal,  but  more  or  less  unworthy 
of  men."     (XVII,  406.) 


2i6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

receiving  its  special  rewards.  He  not  only  proposed, 
he  pointed  out  a  way  of  realization.  The  first  thing 
was  to  remove  the  stigma  of  vulgarity  and  degrada- 
tion attached  to  the  business  of  the  retail  merchant. 
This  could  be  done,  he  maintained,  "by  making  all 
retail  dealers  merely  salaried  officers  in  the  employ  of 
the  trade  guilds,"  thus  taking  away  the  temptations 
to  profit  and  the  various  other  tendencies  to  selfish- 
ness usually  recognized  as  part  of  the  business.  To 
all  objections  that  might  be  raised  against  such  a 
system,  Ruskin  was  content  to  answer  that  if  a  soldier 
could  be  trained  to  offer  himself  fearlessly  to  the 
chance  of  being  shot,  then  "assuredly,  ij you  make  it 
also  a  point  of  honor  with  him^'  ^  a  merchant,  or  a 
"dealer,"  could  also  be  sufficiently  trained  in  self-de- 
nial to  look  "you  out  with  care  such  a  piece  of  cheese 
or  bacon  as  you  have  asked  for." 

It  was  necessary  only  to  change  the  consciousness 
of  society  toward  various  kinds  of  employment,  so 
that  there  should  be  less  concern  among  workers 
about  what  work  they  were  doing,  and  far  more  about 
how  they  were  doing  it.  Suppose  the  different  trades 
were  taken  up  in  this  spirit,  with  a  consequent 
enormous  rise  in  the  standards  of  achievement,  until 
by  the  rules  of  the  craft  no  man  were  permitted  to 
have  independent  use  of  any  material  until  he  knew 
how  to  make  the  best  of  it?  What  would  be  the 
result?  "The  arts  of  working  in  wood,  clay,  stone, 
and  metal,"  said  Ruskin,  "would  all  be  fine  arts 
(working  in  iron  for  machinery  becoming  an  entirely 
distinct  business).    There  would  be  no  joiner's  work, 

^The  italics  are  mine. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  217 

no  smith's,  no  pottery  nor  stone-cutting,  so  debased 
in  character  as  to  be  entirely  unconnected  with  the 
finer  branches  of  the  same  art;  and  to  at  least  one  of 
these  finer  branches  (generally  in  metal-work)  every 
painter  and  sculptor  would  be  necessarily  apprenticed 
during  some  years  of  his  education.  There  would  be 
room,  in  these  four  trades  alone,  for  nearly  every 
grade  of  practical  intelligence  and  productive  imagi- 
nation." ^  Consistent  with  his  ideals  of  education  and 
of  art,  as  well  as  with  his  schemes  for  the  elevation  of 
many  kinds  of  work,  he  would  go  yet  further  with  the 
crafts.  "It  would  be  a  part  of  my  scheme  of  physical 
education,"  he  said,  "that  every  youth  in  the  state — 
from  king's  son  downwards, — should  learn  to  do 
something  thoroughly  and  finely  with  his  hand,  so  as 
to  let  him  know  what  touch  meant;  and  what  stout 
craftsmanship  meant;  and  to  inform  him  of  many 
things  besides,  which  no  man  can  learn  but  by  some 
severely  accurate  discipline  in  doing.  Let  him  once 
learn  to  take  a  straight  shaving  off  a  plank,  or  draw  a 
fine  curve  without  faltering,  or  lay  a  brick  level  in  its 
mortar;  and  he  has  learned  a  multitude  of  other 
matters  which  no  lips  of  man  could  ever  teach  him. 
He  might  choose  his  craft,  but  whatever  it  was,  he 
should  learn  it  to  some  sufficient  degree  of  true 
dexterity:  and  the  result  would  be,  in  after  life,  that 
among  the  middle  classes  a  good  deal  of  their  house 
furniture  would  be  made,  and  a  good  deal  of  rough 
work,  more  or  less  clumsily,  but  not  ineffectively, 
got  through,  by  the  master  himself  and  his  sons, 
with  much  furtherance  of  their  general  health  and 

»  Works,  XVII,  426. 


2i8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

peace  of  mind,  and  increase  of  innocent  domestic 
pride  and  pleasure,  and  to  the  extinction  of  a 
great  deal  of  vulgar  upholstery  and  other  mean 
handicraft."  ^ 

With  the  increase  of  handicrafts  there  should  follow 
a  reduction  of  machine-labor  to  the  minimum.  Rus- 
kin's  attitude  toward  machinery  has  often  been 
misunderstood  and  his  antagonism  exaggerated.  He 
was  first  and  last  opposed  to  machine-labor  because 
he  regarded  it  as  servile,  invariably  degrading  the 
man  who  became  a  slave  to  it,  grinding  out  his  soul 
and  reducing  his  body  to  the  level  of  an  automaton. 
He  was  opposed  to  it  in  the  arts  because  it  put 
mechanism  in  the  place  of  skill,  destroyed  sensibility 
to  artistic  values,  and  substituted  mere  agreeable 
form  for  evidence  of  human  care  and  thought  and 
love:  "so  that  the  eye  loses  its  sense  of  this  very 
evidence,  and  no  more  perceives  the  difference  be- 
tween the  blind  accuracy  of  the  engine,  and  the 
bright,  strange  play  of  the  living  stroke."  -  He  op- 
posed machinery  on  economic  grounds  also;  arguing 
that  it  was  wrong  to  use  machines  so  long  as  men 
starved  for  want  of  employment.  But  even  Ruskin's 
medieval  enthusiasm  for  handwork  never  prompted 
him  to  urge  the  complete  abandonment  of  machinery. 
Where  they  could  effectively  shorten  human  labor  or 
accomplish  what  unaided  human  hands  could  not 
otherwise  accomplish,  machines  were  to  be  used;  as, 
for  example,  "on  a  colossal  scale  in  mighty  and  useful 
works,"  such  as  reclaiming  waste  lands,  irrigating 
deserts,    deepening    river    channels,    and    otherwise 

»  Works,  XVII,  426.  2  Ibid.,  XII,  173- 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  219 

recovering  earth's  resources  for  man's  use.^  Machin- 
ery moved  by  steam,  manufactories  "needing  the 
help  of  fire,"  he  would  have  reduced  to  the  lowest 
limit,  "so  that  nothing  may  ever  be  made  of  iron 
that  can  as  effectively  be  made  of  wood  or  stone; 
and  nothing  moved  by  steam  that  can  be  as  effec- 
tively moved  by  natural  forces."  He  would  use  all 
vital  muscular  power  first,  all  natural  mechanical 
power  next  (wind,  water  and  electricity),  and  all 
artificially  mechanical  power  last.-  The  whole 
problem  of  servile  employment,  to  summarize,  \ 
would  thus  be  solved  in  these  various  ways: — by  a  ' 
reduction  in  the  demand  for  the  product  of  servile 
work  and  for  senseless  luxuries;  by  the  elevation  of 
many  kinds  of  work,  now  regarded  as  vulgar  and 
menial,  to  a  position  of  honor  in  the  public  mind;  by  a 
raising  of  the  standard  of  the  crafts  and  a  union  of 
these  with  the  arts  through  guilds  or  companies  of 
workers,  together  with  an  immense  extension  of 
craft-interest  and  skill  into  all  kinds  of  domestic 
manual  work;  and,  finally,  by  a  reduction  of  machine- 
labor  to  the  minimum,  and  all  possible  increase  of 
hand-labor  to  the  maximum.  "^ 

But  even  if  society  applied  these  remedies,  there 

1  Ruskin's  panegyric  on  the  locomotive  is  one  of  his  most  wonderful 
passages  of  prose;  in  the  Cestus  of  Aglaia,  XIX,  60. 

*  Works,  XX,  113.  Ruskin  raged  against  the  noise  and  dirt  of  railroads, 
but  he  traveled  on  them  and  admitted  their  necessity:  e.  g.,  "Steam,  or 
any  modes  of  heat-power,  may  only  be  employed  justifiably  under 
extreme  or  special  conditions  of  need;  as  for  speed  on  main  lines  of  com- 
munication, and  for  raising  water  from  great  depths,  or  other  such  work 
beyond  human  strength."  (XXVIII,  655.)  He  believed  in  a  far  more 
extensive  use  of  wind  and  water  power  than  was  realized  anywhere  in  his 
day  or  is  realized  even  to-day.  He  suggested,  for  example,  the  use  of 
reservoirs  filled  by  the  tides,  to  furnish  power  for  mills. 


220  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

would  remain  rough  work  to  be  done.  With  all  his 
dreaming,  Ruskin  did  not  expect  to  see  a  state  of 
society  in  which  all  disagreeable  or  debasing  toil 
should  be  completely  eliminated.  This  should  be 
given,  first,  to  all  persons  willing  to  work  but  out  of 
employment.  Every  such  man,  woman,  and  child 
should  be  received  at  the  nearest  government  agency 
or  school  and  put  to  the  work  they  were  fit  for  "at  a 
fixed  rate  of  wages  determinable  every  year."  Should 
they  object,  they  were  then  to  be  compelled  to  per- 
form the  more  painful  and  degrading  tasks,  especially 
those  "in  mines  and  other  places  of  danger  (such 
danger  being,  however,  diminished  to  the  utmost 
by  careful  regulation  and  discipline)."  ^  Criminals 
and  idlers,  Ruskin  believed,  should  likewise  be  rigo- 
rously conscripted  for  the  more  dangerous  work,  such 
"mechanical  and  foul  employment"  taking  the  form 
of  punishment  or  probation.  Indeed  forced  employ- 
ment for  these  classes  should  be  made  a  means  of 
reformation  even  more  than  of  punishment.  All 
three  classes — the  poor,  the  indolent,  the  vicious — 
might  under  proper  governmental  supervision  be 
organized  into  groups  for  the  performance  of  various 
enterprises  to  be  carried  on  by  the  state,  such  as  road- 
making,  reclamation  of  waste  land,  harbor-making, 
all  kinds  of  porterage,  repair  of  buildings,  and  even 
certain  kinds  of  arts  and  crafts,  like  dress-making, 
pottery,  and  metal  work.  For  the  rough  work  that 
might  yet  remain  to  be  done,  especially  agricultural 
and  other  out-door  work,  not  a  little  of  it  should  be 
done  by  workers  recruited  from  the  upper  classes! 

'  Works,  XVII,   22. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  221 

Ruskin  looked  with  disgust  upon  an  aristocracy  that 
consumed  enormous  amounts  of  time  in  wasteful,  or 
destructive  field  sports,  particularly  hunting,  shoot- 
ing, and  horse-racing.  Were  this  exertion  put  to 
serviceable  use  on  the  farm,  the  gain  would  be  incal- 
culable all  round.  "It  would  be  far  better,  for  in- 
stance, that  a  gentleman  should  mow  his  own  fields, 
than  ride  over  other  people's."  ^  As  for  that  portion 
of  the  rough  work  still  untouched,  notably  manufac- 
ture, it  would  fall  to  the  lot  of  a  large  class  incapaci- 
tated by  nature  for  anything  higher.  Like  Carlyle, 
Ruskin  held  to  the  belief  that  some  people  are  born  to 
do  the  lower  work  such  as  was  performed  by  serfs  in 
medieval  times;  intellectually  they  are  the  inferiors, 
whom  education  can  make  little  of  and  to  whom 
should  fall  the  lot  of  doing  the  "common  mechanical 
business"  of  the  world.  He  of  course  felt  that  the 
status  of  these  workers  would  be  determined  in  great 
part  by  the  kind  of  masters  they  served.  His  ideal 
for  them,  however,  was  essentially  medieval;  whether 
domestic  or  civil  servants  they  should  be  attached  by 
loyalty  to  a  benevolent  superior,  who  would  have 
authority  to  compel  them  to  work  when  they  refused 
to  serve  willingly.  In  truth  Ruskin  believed  in 
slavery,  if  by  slavery  is  meant  that  there  is  a  govern- 
ing power  somewhere  which  can,  when  necessary, 
force  men  to  work.  "I  am  prepared,"  he  said,  "if 
the  need  be  clear  to  my  own  mind,  and  if  the  power  is 
in  my  hands,  to  throw  men  into  prison,  or  any  other 

'  fForks,  VII,  429.  Cf.  XVII,  234.  While  Ruskin  all  his  life  vigorously 
condemned  destructive  field  sports,  he  no  less  vigorously  encouraged  all 
forms  of  athletic  exercise,  such  as  boxing,  wrestling,  cricketing,  rowing, 
etc.     Cf.  VII,  340. 


222  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

captivity — to  bind  them  or  to  beat  them — and  force 
them,  for  such  periods  as  I  may  judge  necessary,  to 
any  kind  of  irksome  labor:  and,  on  occasion  of  des- 
perate resistance,  to  hang  or  shoot  them.  But  I  will 
not  sell  them."  ^ 

It  is  clear  that  Ruskin  was  not  a  sentimentalist  in 
his  treatment  of  the  labor  problem.  His  ideals  imply, 
throughout,  the  rigors  of  work,  but  also  its  sacredness 
and  necessity.  As  an  accomplished  draughtsman,  as 
an  intense  student  of  technique,  he  knew  what  preci- 
sion of  hand  meant  and  what  prolonged  effort, 
patience,  and  uprightness  of  character  it  cost  the 
masters.  He  knew,  too,  by  observation,  if  not  by 
experience,  that  the  vast  resources  of  earth  could  not 
be  made  available  for  mankind  without  continuous 
and  wearing  toil.  His  convictions  were  undoubtedly 
intensified  by  the  influence  of  Carlyle;  for  in  his  later 
writings  he  returned  repeatedly  to  the  idea  of  noble- 
ness in  work,  and  he  preached  a  gospel  of  labor  that 
often  has  the  unmistakable  accent  of  his  master. 
"All  education,"  he  said,  for  example,  "begins  in 
work.  What  we  think,  or  what  we  know,  or  what  we 
believe,  is  in  the  end,  of  little  consequence.  The  only 
thing  of  consequence  is  what  we  do''  ^  Like  Carlvie, 
also,  he  made  much  of  the  ideal  of  soldiership  in  work, 
a  new  chivalry  of  labor.  Again  and  again  he  appealed 
to  the  British  people  to  lift  the  worker  to  the  level  of 
the  fighter,  to  make  the  business  of  maintaining  life  at 
least  as  honorable  as  destroying  it,  to  band  the  work- 
ers together  in  companies  to  do  some  of  the  hard  and 
servile  jobs,  performing  them  with  all  the  esprit  de 

»  Works,  XVII,  4j8.  2  Ihid.,  XVIII,  507. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  223 

corps  and  elan  of  an  army  going  into  battle!  Soldiers 
themselves,  in  the  first  place,  when  not  fighting 
should  be  working.  "Our  whole  system  of  work,"  he 
said,  "must  be  based  on  the  nobleness  of  soldier- 
ship— so  that  we  shall  all  be  soldiers  of  either  plough- 
share or  sword;  and  literally  all  our  actual  and  pro- 
fessed soldiers,  whether  professed  for  a  time  only,  or 
for  life,  must  be  kept  to  hard  work  of  hand,  when  not 
in  actual  war;  their  honor  consisting  in  being  set  to 
service  of  more  pain  and  danger  than  others;  to  life- 
boat service;  to  redeeming  of  ground  from  furious 
rivers  or  sea — or  mountain  ruin;  to  subduing  wild  and 
unhealthy  land,  and  extending  the  confines  of  colonies 
in  the  front  of  miasm  and  famine,  and  savage  races."  ^ 
In  the  second  place,  not  only  should  trained  soldiers 
be  employed  when  not  fighting,  but  also  civilians 
should  be  enlisted  for  the  purpose  of  doing  some  of  the 
hard  work.  Society  had  only  to  make  up  its  mind 
that  way  and  it  would  find  that  the  virtues  of  loyalty 
and  obedience  and  industry  could  be  developed  as 
well  for  manufacture  as  for  massacre;  that  men 
could  serve  their  country  with  the  spade  even  better 
than  with  the  sword;  and  that  the  builders  were  as 
worthy  of  honors  and  pensions  in  old  age  or  disabil- 
ity, as  the  destroyers.  A  rational  and  fruitful  ideal! 
An  ideal  which  future  generations  of  mankind  will 
have  the  wisdom  to  adopt,  if  they  shall  keep  the 
world  safe  for  growth  in  the  arts  of  peace.^ 

The  problem  of  servile  labor,  however,  is  a  problem 
that  in  the  main  and  for  the  present  involved  only  the 
lower  orders  of  society.    Ruskin  was  no  less  concerned 

'  JVorks,  XVII,  463.  «  Ibid.,  XVIII,  419,  449. 


224  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

with  the  position  and  function  of  the  higher  orders, 
and  he  had  much  to  say,  first  and  last,  regarding  their 
part  in  the  social  scheme  and  the  complex  questions 
involved  therein.  The  aristocracy  of  a  nation  he 
regarded  as  composed  of  (a)  landed  proprietors  and 
soldiers,  (b)  captains  of  industry,  (c)  and  professional 
classes  and  masters  in  science,  art,  and  literature.^ 
From  the  landed  aristocracy  should  be  chosen  "the 
captains  and  judges  of  England,  its  advocates,  and 
generally  its  State  officers,  all  such  functions  being 
held  for  fixed  pay."  Looking  forward  to  ideal  condi- 
tions, Ruskin  would  set  apart  certain  state  officers 
who  were  to  be  "charged  with  the  direction  of  public 
agency  in  matters  of  public  utility," — anticipating  in 
this  pregnant  phrase  a  vast  extension  of  government  j 
control. 2  His  ideas  of  control  for  the  future  were 
further  suggested  in  his  conception  of  the  proper 
duties  of  bishops:  "Over  every  hundred  (more  or 
less)  of  the  families  composing  a  Christian  State, 
there  should  be  appointed  an  overseer,  or  bishop,  to 
render  account,  to  the  State,  of  the  life  of  every 
individual  in  those  families;  and  to  have  care  both  of 
their  interest  and  conduct  to  such  an  extent  as  they 
may  be  willing  to  admit,  or  as  their  faults  may  jus- 
tify: so  that  it  may  be  impossible  for  any  person, 
however  humble,  to  suffer  from  unknown  want,  or 
live  in  unrecognized  crime; — such  help  and  observ- 
ance being  rendered  without  officiousness  either  of 

'  I  omit  a  discussion  of  the  soldier  and  professional  classes,  since  Ruskin 
said  nothing  concerning  them  sufficiently  new  or  striking  to  deserve 
special  treatment.  The  reader  may  consult  the  general  Index  under 
"  Soldiers"  and  '  'Professions"  for  a  good  deal  of  discursive  comment. 

2  Works,  XVII,  440,  441. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  225 

interference  or  inquisition  (the  limits  of  both  being 
determined  by  national  law),  but  with  the  patient 
and  gentle  watchfulness  which  true  Christian  pastors 
now  exercise  over  their  flocks;  only  with  a  higher  legal 
authority.  ...  of  interference  on  due  occasion."  ^ 
Instead  of  continuing  to  be  parasites  on  society, 
living  in  epicurean  seclusion,  bishops  were  thus  to  be 
real  overseers^  and  were  to  inform  themselves  as  to 
the  material  condition  of  their  flocks  even  before  they 
attempted  to  minister  to  their  spiritual  welfare. ^ 

It  was  impossible  for  Ruskin  to  discuss  the  landed 
aristocracy  without  reference  to  the  land  question. 
He  was  deeply  dissatisfied  with  actual  conditions  of 
land  tenure,  and  signs  of  disturbance,  in  his  opinion, 
were  as  plain  here  as  in  the  world  of  industry.  The 
holders  of  land  were  largely  mere  rent-receivers, 
gathering  the  products  of  others'  labors  and  spending 
them  for  luxuries;  "able-bodied  paupers,"  he  called 
them,  reaping  where  they  had  not  sowed.  Unwilling 
to  endure  this  situation  forever,  the  poor  were  already 
showing  signs  of  revolt.  Unless  reforms  in  land 
tenure  were  brought  about  soon,  Ruskin  urged, 
speaking  to  English  landlords,  "You  will  find  your- 
selves in  Parliament  in  front  of  a  majority  resolved 
on  the  establishment  of  a  Republic,  and  the  division 

1  Works,  XVII,  378. 

2  Ruskin  spoke  out  boldly  and  often  against  the  comfortable  and  com- 
placent professionalism  of  English  bishops, — "with  its  pride,  privilege, 
and  more  or  less  roseate  repose  of  domestic  felicity.  The  present  Bishops 
of  the  English  Church,"  ht  said,  "have  forfeited  and  fallen  from  their 
Bishoprics  by  transgression;  and  betrayal  of  their  Lord,  first  by  simony, 
and  secondly,  and  chiefly,  by  lying  for  (lod  with  one  mouth,  and  contend- 
ing for  their  own  personal  interests  as  a  professional  body,  as  if  these  were 
the  cause  of  Christ."     (/f^or^  XXVIII,  36^,  514.) 


226  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

of  lands."  ^  As  to  fundamental  economic  principles 
governing  tenure,  his  program  was  simple  and  not 
extreme.  One  of  the  essential  forms  of  wealth,  land 
should  not  only  supply  food  and  mechanical  power 
for  the  use  of  man;  but  it  should  also  supply  beauty 
for  his  spirit,  exercise  for  his  body,  and  means  for  the 
support  of  animal  life,  for  which  uses  sufficient 
mountains  and  moorland  should  be  set  apart  by 
direction  of  the  state.  Since,  however,|the  land  is 
limited  in  quantity,  it  ought  not  to  be  monopolized 
by  a  favorite  few,\-"  hereditarily  sacred  persons  to 
whom  the  earth,  air,  and  water  of  the  world  belong, 
as  personal  property."  i(The  state  must  secure  "va- 
rious portions"  of  it  to  those  who  can  use  it  properly,) 
for  the  most  part  leaving  them  free  in  the  manage- 
ment,— "interfering  in  cases  of  gross  mismanagement 
or  abuse  of  power,"  and  enforcing  upon  the  holders 
due  conditions  of  possession,  such  as  prevention  of 
waste  and  pollution.  "The  land  to  those  who  can  use 
it,"  was  thus  Ruskin's  ideal,  precisely  as  he  had  said 
that  wealth  of  all  kinds  must  be  dependent  upon  the 
capacity  of  its  possessor  to  use  it  for  his  own  or  for 
society's  good.  \  Possession  of  land,  therefore,  was  to 
imply  the  duty  of  living  upon  it  and  by  it"^if  there 
were  enough;  and  if  there  were  more  than  enough, 
the  duty  of  making  it  fruitful  and  beautiful  for  as 
many  more  as  it  could  support.  "Theowner  of  land, 
necessarily  and  justly  left  in  great  measure  by  the 
State  to  do  what  he  will  with  his  own,  is  nevertheless 
entirelyxfesponsible  to  the  State  for  the  generally 
beneficial  management  of   his  territory, V  ^     In  the 

» Works,  XXVIII,  IS2.  ^  Ibid ,  XXIX,  495- 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  227 

ideal  state  Ruskin  thought  that  landlords  would  be 
paid  a  fixed  salary  for  superintendence,  all  the  in- 
come derived  from  the  land  going  back  to  the  tenants 
or  for  improvements.     Under  such  ideal  conditions 
wherein  each  person  possessed  only  the  land  he  could 
use,  tenure  should  be  hereditary,  the  property  passing 
from  father  to  son  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  law 
of  primogeniture;  for  Ruskin  desired  to  see  the  agri- 
cultural classes  bound  to  the  land  as  the  artisans  were 
bound  to  the  guild,  bound  by  ties  of  tradition  and 
group-pride,  as  well  as  by  personal  interest.     Land 
nationalization  was,  therefore,  to  him  nonsense.    He^i 
held  for  private  ownership,  albeit  private  ownershigJSr " 
under  severe  responsibilities  to  the  state  and  under      ^ 
the  state's  constant  control.         ^ 

Turning  from  ideal  to  actual  conditions,  however, 
Ruskin  declared  expressly  for  fixity  of  rent  and  se- 
curity for  tenants'  improvements.  He  protested 
against  the  practice  of  squeezing  the  tenant  for 
increased  rent  as  often  as  the  tenant  raised  the  pro- 
ductivity of  the  land  or  improved  the  buildings,  thus 
keeping  him  down  to  a  uniform  level  of  poverty  and 
servitude.  The  landlord  should  voluntarily  fix  his 
income,  live  well  within  it,  and  put  his  whole  soul 
"into  the  right  employment  of  the  rest  for  the 
bettering  of  (his)  estates,  in  ways  which  the  farmers 
for  their  own  use  could  not  or  would  not."  ^  Though 
Ruskin,  as  we  have  just  seen,  favored  an  extension  of 
state  control  over  land,  under  ideal  conditions,  he  was 
slow  to  advocate  by  law  either  immediate  redistribu- 
tion of  land  or  limitation  of  income  in  the  case  of 
'  fForks,  XXVIII,  155. 


228  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  landed  aristocracy.  He  much  preferred  that  the 
present  holders  should  not  be  arbitrarily  dispossessed, 
but  rather  put  under  further  state  control;  and  he 
urged  workers  of  every  description  to  buy  land  (hav- 
ing got  it  "by  the  law  of  labor,  working  for  it,  saving 
for  it,  and  buying  it: — but  buying  never  to  let  go"), 
and  to  become  landowners  on  their  own  account, — 
"diminutive  squires."  He  urged  the  trade-unions 
and  co-operative  societies  to  acquire  land  and  to 
make  the  most  of  it  for  the  common  purpose  of  their 
organizations,  subject  always  to  the  laws  of  the  state. ^ 
A  gradual  redistribution  of  land  by  peaceful  means 
under  law  was  thus  what  Ruskin  hoped  for.  A  sud- 
den and  forced  redistribution  could  not  be  effected 
"without  grave  and  prolonged  civil  disturbance," 
and  would  in  itself  be  of  little  advantage,  besides 
being  an  unjust  arrangement, — a  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  avoided.  But  sure  to  come,  he 
believed,  if  abuses  of  landlordism  were  allowed  to 
continue  unchecked. 

The  great  merchants  constituted  another  order  of 
the  aristocracy.  As  we  have  already  noticed  in  a 
previous  connection,  Ruskin  believed  that  the  office 
of  merchant  should  be  immensely  elevated.  It  was 
his  duty  to  provide  for  the  people,  a  duty  as  sacred 
and  as  honorable  as  that  of  the  soldier  whose  duty  it 
was  to  defend  them,  or  that  of  the  physician  and 
lawyer,  who  must  maintain  health  and  enforce  justice. 
The  merchant  was  a  master  producer  and  organizer, 

i"A  certain  quantity  of  public  land  must  be  set  aside  for  public  uses 
and  pleasure,  and  especially  for  purposes  of  education. "  {Works,  XXIX, 
495) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  229 

exercising  vast  power  and  therefore  bound  by  equally- 
vast  responsibilities.  Upon  him  rested  the  sacred 
obligation  of  supplying  goods  to  the  public  the 
quality  of  which  he  could  guarantee,  if  need  be,  with 
his  life;  and  of  caring  for  his  workers  (their  whole 
status  of  life  both  in  the  shop  and  at  home)  with  a 
painstaking  care  that  Ruskin  could  only  liken  to  the 
care  of  a  father  for  his  children.  In  this  function  of 
providing  for  his  men,  the  master  should  indeed  be 
"invested  with  a  distinctly  paternal  authority  and 
responsibility."  Here,  as  everywhere  else  in  Ruskin's 
social  philosophy,  high  ethical  ideals  must  control 
industrial  relations.  Conditions  of  mutual  trust  and 
regard  should  so  much  prevail  as  to  give  the  workers 
*' permanent  interest  in  the  establishment  with  which 
they  are  connected,  like  that  of  the  domestic  servants 
in  an  old  family,  or  an  esprit  de  corps^  like  that  of  the 
soldiers  in  a  crack  regiment."  ^  (jnstead  of  a  system 
of  profit-sharing,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  current 
wage-system  on  the  other,  working  under  the  pressure 
of  competition, -Ruskin  favored  an  "intermediate 
method,  by  which  every  subordinate  shall  be  paid 
sufficient  and  regular  wages,  according  to  his  rank; 
by  which  due  provision  shall  be  made  out  of  the 
profits  of  the  business  for  sick  and  superannuated 
workers;  and  by  which  the  master,  being  held  respon- 
sible ^  as  a  minor  king  or  governor^  for  the  conduct  as 
well  as  the  comfort  of  all  those  under  his  rule,  shall,  on 
that  condition,  be  permitted  to  retain  to  his  own  use 
the  surplus  profits  of  the  business  which  the  fact  of 
his  being  its  master  may  be  assumed  to  prove  that  he 
'  IVoTks,  XVII,  33. 


230  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

has  organized  by  superior  intellect  and  energy."  ^  It 
is  clear  from  this  statement  that  Ruskin  wished  to  see 
the  captains  of  industry  free  to  make  fortunes  and  to 
reap  the  rewards  of  their  higher  abilities  and  virtues. 
^But  as  in  the  case  of  the  landlords,  he  thought  that 
the  merchants  should  voluntarily  fix  their  incomes 
and  refuse  increase  of  business  beyond  defined  limits, 
thus  "obtaining  due  freedom  of  time  for  better 
thoughts."  The  maker  of  fortune  should  also  be  the 
spender  of  it;  it  should  be  his  aim  not  to  die  rich,  but 
to  live  "rich"  and  die  poor,  using  his  wealth,  during 
his  life,  for  the  well-being  of  himself  and  his  fellows. 

In  an  ideal  social  state,  in  Ruskin's  Utopia,  he 
would  have  the  incomes  of  captains  of  industry,  like 
the  incomes  of  landlords,  fixed  by  law,  and  he  would 
have  both  classes  paid,  not  for  ownership  of  capital, 
but  for  stewardship  of  property  and  superintendence 
of  labor.  Thus,  he  contended,  the  temptation  to 
consume  energy  in  the  heaping  up  of  wealth  would  be 
removed;  and  when  the  older  men  of  these  upper 
classes,  having  attained  the  "prescribed  limits  of 
wealth  from  commercial  competition,"  should  be 
withdrawn  in  favor  of  younger  leaders,  these  older 
men  should  be  induced  to  serve  the  state,  unselfishly, 
either  in  parliament,  in  the  superintendence  of  public 
enterprise,  or  in  the  furtherance  of  the  public  interest 
wherever  their  ripe  experience  would  be  of  service. ^ 
Captains  of  industry  would  therefore  round  out  their 
career  in  the  most  honorable  toil  and  with  the  highest 

^  Works,  XVII,  319. 

^  The  narrow-mindedness  and  greed  of  the  capitalists  of  his  time  Ruskin 
condemned  as  severely  as  he  did  the  faults  of  the  landlords  and  the 
bishops.    {E.  g.  XXVII,  127;  XVI,  343n.;  XVIII,  415.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  231 

reward.  What  of  the  retail  merchants,  meantime, 
the  distributors  of  commodities,  the  middlemen? 
These,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out  in  connection 
with  the  problem  of  servile  labor,  Ruskin  would, 
under  ideal  social  conditions,  make  "salaried  officers 
in  the  employ  of  the  trade  guilds;  the  stewards,  that 
is  to  say,  of  the  saleable  properties  of  those  guilds, 
and  purveyors  of  such  and  such  articles  to  a  given 
number  of  families."  ^  But  at  this  point  we  come 
to  the  third  and  last  group  in  the  social  order,  to  the 
skilled  and  classified  workers,  to  the  operatives  and 
craftsmen,  and  to  their  organization  into  independent 
communities,  or  guilds.  We  here  touch  upon  one  of 
the  most  suggestive  and  fruitful  aspects  of  Ruskin's 
social  philosophy.  '"=:--v     ^:i^5U-«_, 

In  The  Political  Economy  of  Art  (1857)  he  had 
defined  political  economy  as  the  wise  management 
of  labor.  He  made  this  view  of  it  the  central  theme 
of  Unto  This  Lasty  where  he  declared  that  the  su- 
preme need  of  the  time  was  the  organization  of  the 
workers.  And  in  an  unpublished  epilogue  to  Fors 
(1884),  interesting  as  a  kind  of  farewell  to  his  work  in 
the  field  of  social  reconstruction,  he  returned  to  the 
problem  with  the  old  insistence,  lamenting  the 
absence  of  constructive  reform  in  the  thing  that 
mattered  most,  the  daily  toil  of  the  worker.  Isolated, 
enslaved  to  commercialism,  the  modern  operative 
worked  for  a  wage  without  interest  in  his  labor  and 
without  a  voice  in  the  control  of  the  industry  in 
which  he  was  an  impersonal  unit.  Ruskin's  social 
ideals  were  of  course  impossible  of  realization  in  a 
'  irorks,  XVII,  427. 


232  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

scheme  like  this.  What  he  wished  to  see  was  the 
organization  of  workers  into  communities  for  the 
effective  control  of  their  own  lives  and  occupations. 
How  far  he  would  go  in  the  way  of  such  community 
control  Ruskin  did  not  say;  and  he  probably  had  not 
fully  thought  out.  Did  he  look  for  an  eventual 
disappearance  of  capitalism  and  an  ultimate  owner- 
ship, or  control,  of  the  tools  of  all  industry  by  the 
workers?  There  are  indications  here  and  there  that 
he  did,  as  for  example  in  a  resolution  which  he  pro- 
posed at  a  meeting  of  The  National  Association  for 
the  Promotion  of  Social  Science  (1868),  running  as 
follows:  "That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  meeting,  the 
interests  of  workmen  and  their  employers  are  at  pres- 
sent  opposed,  and  can  only  become  identical  when  all 
are  equally  employed  in  defined  labor  and  recognized 
duty,  and  all,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  are  paid 
fixed  salaries,  proportional  to  the  value  of  their 
services  and  sufficient  for  their  honorable  maintenance 
in  the  situations  of  life  properly  occupied  by  them."  ^ 
But  in  the  writings  published  during  his  lifetime, 
there  is  nowhere  a  completely  coherent  plan  of  labor 
organization,  such  as  might  be  operated  in  an  actual 
community  of  workers.  In  the  important  matter  of 
the  relation  of  such  communities  to  the  state,  Ruskin 
appears  to  have  been  of  divided  mind;  for  at  one  time 
he  advocated  voluntary  organizations,  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  the  state,  while,  at  another,  he  set  forth  a 
plan  of  workshops  that  were  to  be  under  government 
direction. 

*  Works,  XVII,  539.    Similar  ideas  found  expression  in  the  Guild  of  St. 
George,  of  which  more  later. 


\ 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  233 

Many  of  his  ideals  of  industrial  organization  go 
back  for  their  inspiration  to  the  medieval  guilds, 
especially  to  the  craft-guilds  of  thirteenth-century 
Florence.  The  thirteenth  century  was  to  Ruskin,  as 
it  has  been  to  so  many  other  lovers  of  the  beautiful, 
not  merely  the  century  of  Dante,  Giotto,  and  St. 
Francis,  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied  and  the  Holy  Grail, 
but  the  century  also  of  the  cathedral  builders  and  the 
guilds,  when  art  had  its  roots  in  industry  and  when 
industry  flowered  into  the  lovliest  art  of  the  world. 
"A  great  age  in  all  ways,"  said  Ruskin;  "but  most 
notably  so  in  the  correspondence  it  presented,  up  to 
a  just  and  honorable  point,  with  the  utilitarian  energy 
of  our  own  days."  ^  No  other  city  was  so  fair  a  repre- 
sentative of  this  period  as  Florence.  The  view  from 
Fiesole  was,  he  thought,  the  view  of  all  the  world, 
and  the  baptistery  "the  center  of  the  arts  of  the 
world";  while  the  bell-tower  of  Giotto,  whose  "spiral 
shafts  and  fairy  traceries,  so  white,  so  faint,  so  crys- 
talline," were  a  perpetual  delight  to  his  eyes,  was 
"the  model  and  mirror  of  perfect  architecture." 
This  magnificence  of  art,  both  civil  and  ecclesiastical, 
was  the  creation  of  a  company  of  artists  whose  patrons 
were  the  public.  Side  by  side  with  this  finer  art,  there 
flourished  an  extensive  and  highly  developed  do- 
mestic art,  the  work  of  "a  vast  body  of  craftsmen," 
the  artisan  class.  They  were  the  hand-workers,  as- 
sociated together  for  the  production  of  "a  staple  of  ex- 
cellent, or  perhaps  inimitable,  quality," — the  weavers, 
ironsmiths,  goldsmiths,  carpenters,  and  stonecut- 
ters,  upon    whose    occupations  "the    more    refined 

1  fVorks,  XXIII,  47. 


234  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

arts  were  wholesomely  based."  The  artists  and 
craftsmen  were  thus  brought  together  in  the  same 
workshops  and  initiated  into  fellowships  in  the  same 
guilds;  the  artist  never  ceased  to  be  a  craftsman, 
while,  under  the  guidance  and  inspiration  of  his 
masters,  the  craftsman  might  one  day  become  an 
artist.  In  these  companies  of  Florentine  guildsmen 
Ruskin  found  his  ideals  of  art  and  society  in  a  high 
degree  realized.  "No  distinction,"  he  said  of  them, 
"exists  between  artist  and  artisan  except  that  of 
higher  genius  or  better  conduct;  the  best  artist  is 
assuredly  also  the  best  artisan;  and  the  simplest 
workman  uses  his  invention  and  emotion  as  well  as 
his  fingers."  ^  With  common  traditions  and  with  com- 
mon pride  in  hereditary  skill,  industry  and  art  flour- 
ished together  in  these  guilds  under  the  judicious 
patronage  of  a  public  intent  upon  engaging  great 
creative  energies  for  the  common  service.  Studio  art 
and  dilettante  craftsmanship,  turning  out  bizarre 
products  for  aristocratic  patrons,  were  unknown. 
Even  the  humblest  worker  lived  in  an  atmosphere 
congenial  to  the  expression  of  whatever  spark  of 
creative  impulse  might  be  awakened  to  life  within 
him. 

It  was  no  doubt  mainly  because  of  this  close  asso- 
ciation of  the  arts  and  crafts  in  the  medieval  guilds, 
such  as  existed  in  thirteenth-century  Florence,  that 
the  guild-idea  as  applicable  to  modern  conditions  of 
industry  came  to  Ruskin.  From"  his  earliest  refer- 
ences to  the  re-establishment  of  guilds  upon  a  new 
basis,   in   the  lectures   called  The  Political  Economy 

1  JVoTks,  XXIII,  52. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  235 

of  Art  (1857),  and  in  his  Camhridge  Inaugural  Address 
in  the  following  year,  it  is  evident  that  he  first  thought 
of  them  in  connection  with  a  better  production  and 
distribution  of  art.  "I  believe  it  to  be  wholly  im- 
possible," he  said,  "to  teach  special  application  of 
Art  principles  to  various  trades  in  a  single  school. 
That  special  application  can  be  only  learned  rightly 
by  the  experience  of  years  in  the  particular  work 
required.  The  power  of  each  material,  and  the 
difficulties  connected  with  its  treatment,  are  not  so 
much  to  be  taught  as  to  be  felt;  it  is  only  by  repeated 
touch  and  continued  trial  before  the  forge  or  the  fur- 
nace, that  the  goldsmith  can  find  out  how  to  govern 
his  gold,  or  the  glass-worker  his  crystal;  and  it  is  only 
by  watching  and  assisting  the  actual  practice  of  a 
master  in  the  business,  that  the  apprentice  can  learn 
the  efficient  secrets  of  manipulation,  or  perceive  the 
true  limits  of  the  involved  conditions  of  design.  .  .  . 
All  specific  Art-teaching  must  be  given  in  schools 
established  by  each  trade  for  itself.  .  .  .  Therefore, 
I  believe  most  firmly,  that  as  the  laws  of  national 
prosperity  get  familiar  to  us,  we  shall  more  and  more 
cast  our  toil  into  social  and  communicative  systems; 
and  that  one  of  the  first  means  of  our  doing  so,  will  be 
the  re-establishing  guilds  of  every  important  trade  in 
a  vital,  not  formal,  condition; — that  there  will  be  a 
great  council  or  government  house  for  the  members  of 
every  trade,  built  in  whatever  town  of  the  kingdom 
occupies  itself  principally  in  such  trade,  with  minor 
council-halls  in  other  cities;  and  to  each  council-hall, 
officers  attached,  whose  first  business  may  be  to  ex- 
amine into  the  circumstances  of  every  operative,  in 


236  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

that  trade,  who  chooses  to  report  himself  to  them 
when  out  of  work,  and  to  set  him  to  work,  if  he  is 
indeed  able  and  willing,  at  a  fixed  rate  of  wages, 
determined  at  regular  periods  in  the  council-meetings; 
and  whose  next  duty  may  be  to  bring  reports  before 
the  council  of  all  improvements  made  in  the  business, 
and  means  of  its  extension:  not  allowing  private 
patents  of  any  kind,  but  making  all  improvements 
available  to  every  member  of  the  guild,  only  allotting, 
after  successful  trial  of  them,  a  certain  reward  to 
the  inventors."  ^ 

Ruskin  here  brings  into  clear  light  the  principles  of 
medieval  craftsmanship  as  a  basis  for  the  modern 
reconstructed  workshop,  in  opposition  to  private 
schools  of  design  and  philanthropic  institutes,  where 
art  is  taught  not  to  apprentices  but  to  amateurs,  by 
teachers  who  know  nothing  of  the  practical  and 
associated  craftsmanship  of  the  workshop.  But  even 
in  1857  he  went  beyond  a  statement  of  principles  and 
offered  practical  suggestions.  He  proposed  the  es- 
tablishment by  government  of  a  paper  manufactory 
for  the  purpose  of  producing  for  artists'  use  a  paper 
of  guaranteed  quality,  purchasable  at  an  extra  shil- 
ling above  the  commercial  price.  He  proposed,  also, 
"government  establishments  for  every  trade,  in 
which  all  youths  who  desired  it  should  be  received  as 
apprentices  on  their  leaving  school;  and  men  thrown 
out  of  work  received  at  all  times."  ^  A  little  later,  in 
1862,  the  idea  of  government  workshops — essentially 
guilds  under  state  control — had  become  more  definite 
and  inclusive:  "manufactories  and  workshops  for  the 

1  Works,  XVI,  178,  97.  ^Ibid,  XVI,  112. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  237 

production  and  sale  of  every  necessary  of  life,  and  for 
the  exercise  of  every  useful  art.  And,  interfering  no 
whit  with  private  enterprise,  nor  setting  any  re- 
straints or  tax  on  private  trade,  but  leaving  both  to 
do  their  best,  and  beat  the  Government  if  they  could, 
— there  should,  at  these  Government  manufactories 
and  shops,  be  authoritatively  good  and  exemplary 
work  done,  and  pure  and  true  substance  sold;  so  that 
a  man  could  be  sure,  if  he  chose  to  pay  the  Govern- 
ment price,  that  he  got  for  his  money  bread  that  was 
bread,  ale  that  was  ale,  and  work  that  was  work."  ^ 
Later  still  (1867  and  after)  Ruskin's  ideas  expanded 
in  all  directions,  in  favor  of  voluntary  organizations  of 
labor  into  self-governing  communities,  or  guilds,  for 
co-operative  effort.  "The  magnitude  of  the  social 
change  hereby  involved,"  he  said,  "and  the  conse- 
quent differences  in  the  moral  relations  between 
individuals,  have  not  as  yet  been  thought  of, — much 
less  estimated, — by  any  of  your  writers  on  commercial 
subjects."  The  master  bakers  in  a  town,  for  example, 
instead  of  destroying  one  another's  business  by  com- 
petition, should  "form  one  society,  selling  to  the 
public  under  a  common  law  of  severe  penalty  for 
unjust  dealing,  and  at  an  established  price."  Simi- 
larly "all  bankers  should  be  members  of  a  great 
national  body,  answerable  as  a  society  for  all  de- 
posits." Ruskin  called  upon  the  workingmen  of 
England  likewise  to  band  together  for  the  furtherance 
of  their  own  interests  by  the  establishment  of  a 
council  with  regular  meetings  to  "deliberate  upon 
the  possible  modes  of  the  regulation  of  industry,  and 

1  Works,  XVII,  22. 


238  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

advisablest  schemes  for  helpful  discipline  of  life."  ^ 
Now  and  again  he  suggested,  tentatively  and  without 
complete  formulation,  that  the  trade  unions  should 
take  over  many  of  the  functions  of  the  old  guilds;  at 
all  events  that  through  them  the  guild  idea  might  be 
adapted  to  modern  industry,  the  natural  and  essential 
divisions  of  labor  furnishing  a  proper  basis  on  which 
to  start  the  new  groups.^  Get  these  thoroughly 
organized,  he  said  to  the  workers,  "and  the  world 
is  yours,  and  all  the  pleasures  of  it."  A  necessary 
part  of  such  a  voluntary  enterprise,  he  believed,  was 
the  possession  of  land,  purchased  by  the  thrift  and 
toil  of  the  laborers,  proportioned  to  their  numbers, 
and  owned  by  them  as  a  corporate  body,  according  to 
the  principles  of  community  tenure  practiced  by  the 
monks  in  medieval  times. 

The  trade  guilds  having  once  been  established  upon 
such  a  foundation,  their  life  should  go  on  in  obedience 
to  certain  ideals  to  be  regarded  as  sacred.  First,  last, 
and  always  there  must  be  sound  work.  The  knave 
who  should  turn  out  a  product  that  was  sham,  or 
light  in  weight,  or  adulterated,  or  otherwise  dishonest, 
should  instantly  be  dismissed  from  the  guild  under 
severe  penalties.  Ruskin  believed,  however,  that 
when  such  penalties  were  backed  up  by  a  right  public 
opinion,  demanding  good  work  and  rejecting  bad, 
"sham   articles  would  become  speedily  as   rare  as 

1  Works,  XVII,  317,  327.  "The  Trade  Union  Congress,  often  described 
as  'The  Parhament  of  Labor,'  first  assembled  in  the  year  after  this  pas- 
sage was  written  (at  Manchester  in  1868)." 

''Ruskin  named  eighteen  classes  of  work  "assuredly  essential"  (the 
various  trades  necessary  for  the  production  of  food,  buildings,  and 
clothing),  and  three  "not  superfluous"  (the  musicians,  painters,  gold- 
smiths).   (XXIX,  410.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  239 

sound  ones  are  now."  To  secure  these  ends  a  fixed 
standard  of  product  should  be  established.  "This 
would  have  to  be  done  by  the  guild  of  every  trade  in 
its  own  manner,  and  within  easily  recognizable  limits, 
and  this  fixing  of  standard  would  necessitate  much 
simplicity  in  the  forms  and  kinds  of  articles  sold. 
You  could  only  warrant  a  certain  kind  of  glazing  or 
painting  in  china,  a  certain  quality  of  leather  or  cloth, 
bricks  of  a  certain  clay,  loaves  of  a  defined  mixture  of 
meal.  Advisable  improvements  or  varieties  in  manu- 
facture would  have  to  be  examined  and  accepted  by 
the  trade  guild:  when  so  accepted,  they  would  be 
announced  in  public  reports;  and  all  puffery  and  self- 
proclamation,  on  the  part  of  tradesmen,  absolutely 
forbidden,  as  much  as  the  making  of  any  other  kind 
of  noise  or  disturbance."  ^  But  this  was  not  to  be  all. 
The  prices  of  standard  or  warranted  articles  "should 
be  fixed  annually  for  the  trade  throughout  the  king- 
dom." The  wages  of  workmen  were  likewise  to  be 
fixed,  as  also  the  profits  of  the  masters, — all  within 
such  limits  as  the  state  of  the  trade  would  allow. 
Every  firm  belonging  to  a  guild,  moreover,  should  be 
free  to  produce  other  than  the  warranted  class  of 
articles^^oy^ the  standard  quality,  "whether  by  skill 
of  applied  handicraft,  or  fineness  of  material  above 
the  standard  of  the  guild."  Finally,  the  affairs  of 
every  corporate  member  should  be  reported  annually 

•  Works,  XVII,  384.  Merchants  and  traders  outside  the  guild,  said 
Ruskin,  should  have  leave  to  puff  and  advertise  and  to  gull  the  public  as 
much  as  they  could.  If  people  wished  to  buy  of  those  who  refused  to 
belong  to  an  honest  society,  they  might  do  so  "at  their  own  pleasure  and 
peril."  Guilds  should  also  have  the  stimulus  of  "erratic  external  in- 
genuity." 


240  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

to  the  guild  and  the  books  laid  open  to  inspection 
"  for  guidance  in  the  regulation  of  prices  in  the  sub- 
sequent year;  and  any  firm  whose  liabilities  exceeded 
its  assets  by  a  hundred  pounds  should  be  forthwith 
declared   bankrupt."  ^ 

With  these  ideals  for  the  organization  of  labor  upon 
the  lines  of  the  reconstructed  guild,  Ruskin's  account 
breaks  off.  It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  he  did  not 
find  time  to  work  out  his  brilliant  suggestions  to 
greater  fulness  and  coherence,  since  no  phase  of  his 
social  philosophy  is  richer  in  promise  and  no  part 
springs  so  naturally  out  of  the  general  soil  of  his 
thought.  The  guild  in  some  form,  indeed,  would 
seem  to  be  the  only  fit  means  for  the  realization  of  the 
ideals  of  social  reconstruction  for  which  Ruskin  stood; 
a  plan,  in  other  words,  for  the  co-operation  of  the 
workers  within  collectively  controlled  groups,  each 
doing  his  appointed  task  in  an  environment  that  both 
materially  and  socially  aroused  him  to  his  best  efforts, 
and  each  finding  his  task  a  natural  outlet  for  his 
instinct  for  public  service  and  his  instinct  for  self- 
expression. ^  But  it  was  left  for  others  who  came 
after  to  develop  the  guild-idea  in  fuller  detail  as  a 
basis  for  the  reorganization  of  the  present  industrial 
order,  and  even  to  put  it  to  practical  test  in  the  form 
of  the  "reconstructed  workshop,"  an  experiment 
which  Ruskin  would  have  regarded  as  full  of  hope  for 
the  future.     Meantime  his  restless  mind  was  drawn 

1  Works,  XVII,  387. 

^  Ruskin  did  not  overlook,  in  his  guild-ideas,  the  importance  of  environ- 
ment for  the  worker.  His  guild  halls,  or  social  centers,  were  to  be  made 
beautiful  by  paintings  and  decorations,  so  as  to  help  establish  the  worth 
and  honorableness  of  the  trades  represented. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  241 

aside  to  still  other  plans  and  projects,  substantially 
all  of  which,  at  least  in  general  outline,  have  been  set 
before  the  reader.  An  account  of  Ruskin's  social 
philosophy  would  be  incomplete,  however,  without 
some  separate  consideration  of  his  ideas  of  the  state 
and  state  control. 

Part  II — The  Functiofj  of  the  State 

In  his  visions  of  a  new  order  Ruskin  turned  to  the 
state  as  the  central  source  of  control.  The  state,  as 
we  have  seen,  should  regulate  marriage/  should 
supply  a  universal  and  democratic  system  of  educa- 
tion^  and  should  provide  employment  for  those  out 
of  work,,  including  forced  labor  for  the  idle  and 
criminal  classes^  It  should  set  apart  mountain  and 
moorland  for  beauty,  for  exercise,  and  for  support  of 
animal  life,  and  thus  assure  healthy  diversions  for  its 
people.  It  should  accomplish  in  the  course  of  time  a 
revolution  in  land  tenure/with  extended  control  over 
landholders;  it  should  in  the  long  run  fix  fhe  incomes 
of  landlords  and  of  captains  of  industry yinaking  both 
classes  virtually  salaried  superintendents.  It  should 
establish  and  direct  workshops  for  the  manufacture/ 
and  sale  of  every  necessary  of  life,  in  rivalry  with 
private  producers  and  for  the  express  purpose  of  set- 
ting up  a  just  standard  of  quality  and  price  to  all 
consumers.  Still  other  forms  of  state  control  were 
suggested  or  discussed  from  time  to  time  by  Ruskin 
in  his  writings.  /He  advocated  old  age  pensions  in/ 
1857;  and  at  the  same  time  made  it  plain  that  he 
favored  extensive  changes  by  law  in  the  accepted 
modes  of  accumulation  and  distribution  of  property. 


242  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

In  1863  he  urged  government  ownership  of  railroads. 
"Neither  the  roads  nor  the  railroads  should  belong  to 
any  private  persons,"  he  said;  and  they  should  not 
pay  dividends,  but  working  expenses  only.  "Had 
the  money  spent  in  local  mistakes  and  vain  private 
litigation,  on  the  railroads  of  England,  been  laid  out, 
instead,  under  proper  government  restraint,  on  really 
useful  railroad  work,  and  had  no  absurd  expense  been 
incurred  in  ornamenting  stations,  we  might  already 
have  had, — what  ultimately  it  will  be  found  we  must 
have, — quadruple  rails,  two  for  passengers,  and  two 
for  traffic,  on  every  great  line;  and  we  might  have 
been  carried  in  swift  safety,  and  watched  and  warded 
by  well-paid  pointsmen  for  half  the  present  fares."  ^ 

There  are  evidences  also  of  Ruskin's  belief  that  not 
railroads  only,  but  all  public  utilities  should  be 
"under  government  administration  and  security,"  if 
not  under  direct  state  ownership. ^  Very  early  in  his 
literary  career  he  conceived  of  state  control  on  the 
broadest  lines,  and  from  these  he  never  departed.^ 
To  a  program  calling  upon  the  state  to  make  sure 
that  its  people  were  properly  fed,  clothed,  and  housed 
he  often  returned,  describing  in  more  detailed  manner 
than  he  had  in  earlier  accounts  his  notion  of  the 
state's  responsibilities.  Many  of  his  declarations  are 
alike  bold  and  prophetic,  as  for  example  certain  of 
those  in  the  concluding  paragraphs  of  his  lecture  on 

^  Works,  XVII,  252. 

^  See,  for  example,  his  reprinting  in  Fors  for  September,  1877,  a  report  of 
the  Bread-winner's  League  in  New  York.  He  gave  unmistakable  assent 
to  government  ownership  of  the  following:  postroads,  railroads,  gasworks, 
waterworks,  mining  operations,  canals,  post-offices,  telegraphs,  expresses, 
medical  assistance.  {Works,  XXIX,  2l8;  XXVII,  471.) 

»  Works,  XI,  263. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  243 

The  Mystery  of  Life  and  lis  Arts  .(1868), — a  lecture 
into  which,  he  said,  he  had  put  all  that  he  knew  and 
which  Sir  Leslie  Stephen  regarded  as  "the  most  per- 
fect of  his  essays."  After  driving  home  the  scriptural 
truth  that  if  any  man  will  not  work  neither  shall  he 
eat,  he  speaks  of  governmental  control  of  food  as 
follows:  "the  first  thing  is  to  be  sure  that  you  have 
the  food  to  give;  and,  therefore,  to  enforce  the 
organization  of  vast  activities  in  agriculture  and  in 
commerce,  for  the  production  of  the  wholesomest 
food,  and  proper  storing  and  distribution  of  it,  so  that 
no  famine  shall  any  more  be  possible  among  civilized 
beings."  He  next  takes  up  the  housing  problem. 
Providing  lodging  for  the  people,  he  says,  "means  a 
great  deal  of  vigorous  legislature,  and  cutting  down  of 
vested  interests  that  stand  in  the  way,  and  after  that, 
or  before  that,  so  far  as  we  can  get  it,  thorough  sani- 
tary and  remedial  action  in  the  houses  that  we  have; 
and  then  the  building  of  more,  strongly,  beautifully, 
and  in  groups  of  limited  extent,  kept  in  proportion  to 
their  streams,  and  walled  round,  so  that  there  may  be 
no  festering  and  wretched  suburb  anywhere,  but 
clean  and  busy  street  within,  and  the  open  country 
without,  with  a  belt  of  beautiful  garden  and  orchard 
round  the  walls,  so  that  from  any  part  of  the  city 
perfectly  fresh  air  and  grass,  and  sight  of  far  horizon, 
might  be  reachable  in  a  few  minutes'  walk.  This  is 
the  final  aim;  but  in  immediate  action  every  minor 
and  possible  good  to  be  instantly  done,  when,  and  as, 
we  can;  roofs  mended  that  have  holes  in  them — fences 
patched  that  have  gaps  in  them — walls  buttressed 
that  totter — and  floors  propped  that  shake;  cleanli- 


244  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

ness  and  order  enforced  with  our  own  hands  and 
eyes,  till  we  are  breathless  every  day.  And  all  the 
fine  arts  will  healthily  follow."  ^ 

Ruskin  knew  that  such  suggestions,  plain  and 
practical  to  him,  must  have  appeared  chimerical  to 
the  British  business  man,  whose  normal  vision  of  the 
world  was  that  of  a  vast  mob  scrambling  for  wealth 
and  trampling  down  the  weak  who  cumbered  his  way. 
But  he  knew,  too,  that  such  a  man  was  in  truth  a  self- 
centered  pessimist,  who  opposed  all  kinds  of  govern- 
ment interference  on  principle;  and  who,  knowing 
well  both  past  and  present  abuses  of  the  state,  re- 
fused to  believe  that  they  ever  could  be  fewer  or 
his  fellow  men  wiser.  To  Ruskin,  however,  the 
"notion  of  Discipline  and  Interference"  lay  "at  the 
very  root  of  all  human  progress  or  power."  ^  His 
whole  idea  of  the  state,  reiterated  a  hundred  times, 
was  the  idea  of  a  centralized  authority,  directing, 
guiding,  watching,  and  rewarding  its  people.  In  his 
later  years  he  liked  to  do  nothing  so  much  as  to  draw 
a  picture  of  society  in  which  the  energies  of  man  were 
spent,  not  in  the  destruction  of  his  fellows,  in  war, 
but  in  the  conquest  of  his  old-time  enemies, — disease, 
want,  and  ignorance, — and  of  his  ancient  and  still 
unsubdued  environment,  the  vast  waste  places  of 
earth  and  the  yet  vaster  forces  of  nature.  For  the 
function  of  government,  as  he  interpreted  it,  was 
paternalistic.  Such  a  view  to  him  was  the  most 
natural  and  the  simplest  possible.  Its  principles  were 
no  more  and  no  less  than  the  principles  of  the  house, 
the  farm,  or  the  ship,  written  large.     The  French, 

»  Works,  XVIII,  183.  2  Ibid.,  XVI,  26. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  245 

said  he,  in  their  efforts  to  work  out  a  new  social 
system  hit  upon  one  true  principle,  that  of  brother- 
hood; but  in  their  disastrous  experiments  they  forgot 
that  the  fact  of  brotherhood  implied  also  the  fact  of 
fatherhood:  "  that  is  to  say,  if  they  were  to  regard  the 
nation  as  one  family,  the  condition  of  unity  in  that 
family  consisted  no  less  in  their  having  a  head,  or  a 
father,  than  in  their  being  faithful  and  affectionatjs 
members,  or  brothers."  ^ 

It  may  be  said  that  Ruskin's  paternalistic  govern- 
ment is  state  socialism  pure  and  simple.  In  the  sense 
that  he  regarded  society  as  an  organic  whole,  com- 
posed of  mutually  dependent  units,  acting  together  in 
harmony  for  common  ends,  under  state  control,  he 
was  a  socialist.  He  was  a  socialist,  also,  in  his  burn- 
ing protests  against  the  senseless  extravagance  and 
irresponsibility  of  the  upper  classes;  and  in  his  de- 
mand for  a  reduction  of  the  inequalities  of  wealth,  up- 
on the  principle  that  property  and  land  and  tools  alike 
belong  to  those  who  can  use  them.^  Moreover  his 
stern  insistence  that  economists  in  the  future  should 
give  the  same  attention  to  problems  of  distribution  as, 
in  the  past,  they  had  given  to  problems  of  production, 
was  through  and  through  socialistic,  a  cardinal 
principle  of  all  progressive  thinkers  from  his  day  to 
ours.  But  he  was  not  a  Christian  Socialist  after  the 
manner  of  Kingsley  and  Maurice,  who  relied  more 
upon  sentiment  than  upon  law  as  a  means  of  securing 

»  fForks,  XVI,  24. 

"^  Ruskin  had  no  very  definite  program  for  the  orderly  reduction  of 
inequalitits  f)f  wealth.  He  relied  mostly  upon  three  methods,  abolition  of 
interest  and  profits  on  capital,  taxation  (including  income,  property,  and 
excise  tax  on  luxuries),  and  voluntary  action. 


246  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

social  justice.  He  was  a  good  deal  nearer  to  the 
revolutionary  socialists  of  the  Marxian  stripe,  not 
only  in  his  occasional  prophecy  that  the  crimes  and 
follies  of  the  capitalistic  classes  might  precipitate 
power  into  the  hands  of  the  lower  orders,  but  also  in 
his  bold  denunciation  of  the  whole  competitive  sys- 
tem of  industry.  Like  the  Marxists,  Ruskin  de- 
manded the  right  to  work  for  all,  and  theoretically 
adopted,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Marxian  principle  that 
quantity  of  labor  should  determine  the  price  of 
commodities.  More  than  all  else  he  was  socialistic  in 
the  spirit  and  tendency  of  much  of  his  program  for 
social  reform.  Every  principle  for  which  he  contended 
and  every  practical  remedy  which  he  urged  was 
inspired,  as  the  best  socialistic  thought  has  been 
inspired,  by  a  profound  sense  of  the  injustice  in  the 
present  industrial  order,  and  an  equally  profound 
conviction  that  justice  could  come  only  when  the 
work  of  the  world  should  be  organized  upon  such  a 
co-operative  basis  as  to  secure  to  every  human  being, 
obedient  to  the  higher  laws  of  his  nature,  that  oppor- 
tunity for  self-development  in  labor  which  is  the 
intuitive  craving  of  mankind  everywhere. 

'  But  Ruskin  was  not  a  leveler.  Although  he  be- 
lieved that  "  the  fortunes  of  private  persons  should  be 
small,"  and  that  large  fortunes  could  "  not  honestly  be 
made  by  the  work  of  any  one  man's  hands  or  head,"  ^ 
he  had  a  vivid  sense  of  the  natural  inequalities  of 
men  and  of  the  consequent  inevitable  inequality  in 
their  material  possessions.    He  therefore  indignantly 

\  repudiated  the  suggestion  that  his  social  teaching 

^  Works,  XXVII,  I2i;  XVII,  388. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  247 

implied  an  equalitarian  socialism.  "If  there  be  any 
one  point  insisted  on  throughout  my  works  more 
frequently  than  another,"  he  said,  "that  one  point  is 
the  impossibility  of  Equality."  ^  He  agreed  with  all 
reformers,  of  whatever  creed  or  race,  that  the  educa- 
tional system  must  reach  down  to  every  child  in  the 
state;  but  he  had  no  sympathy  with  the  desire  on  the 
part  of  the  lower  orders  to  secure  education  for  the 

Hirpose   of_  making    themselves    the   upper   orders. 

'They  will  be  mightily  astonished,"  he  said,  "when 
they  really  get  it,  to  find  that  it  is  the  fatallest  of  all 
discerners  and  enforcers  of  distinction;  piercing,  even 
to  the  division  of  the  joints  and  marrow,  to  find  out 
wherein  your  body  and  soul  are  less,  or  greater,  than 
other  bodies  and  souls,  and  to  sign  deed  of  separation 
with  unequivocal  zeal."  ^  It  was  no  less  a  funda- 
mental tenet  in  his  social  creed  that  within  certain 
limits  the  industrial  and  economic  independence  of 
each  individual  should  be  guaranteed  by  the  state. 
The  freedom  of  the  worker  must  imply  a  right  to  the 
economic  advantages  resulting  from  his  work.  It 
will  no  doubt  be  a  very  complex  difficulty  in  the 
national  economy  to  adjust  the  laws  so  as  to  secure 
both  a  maximum  of  co-operation  and  a  maximum  of 
individual  initiative.  Nevertheless  the  creation  of 
such  laws  seemed  to  Ruskin  imperative;  laws  "which, 
marking  the  due  limits  of  independent  agency,  may 
enable  it  to  exist  in  full  energy,  not  only  without 
becoming  injurious,  but  so  as  more  variously  and 
perfectly  to  promote  the  entire  interests  of  the 
commonwealth."  ^    With  these  foundations  to  stand 

»  fForks,  XVII,  74.         2  Ibid.,  XVII,  456.         »  Ibid.,  XVII,  375. 


248  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

upon,  therefore,  he  disapproved  of  land  nationaliza- 
tion and  the  equal  division  of  property.  He  was  a 
communist,  he  said,  but  a  "Communist  of  the  old 
school,  reddest  of  the  red,"  which  meant  that  every- 
body should  work  in  common  for  his  hving;  but  not 
that  everybody  should  own  lands,  houses,  and  per- 
sonal property  in  common.  "Any  attempts  to  com- 
munize  these,"  he  said,  "have  always  ended,  and  will 
always  end,  in  ruin  and  shame." ^ 

It  was  Ruskin's  distrust  of  popular  government, 
however,  that  separated  him  furthest  from  socialistic 
or  radical  thought  of  all  kinds.  Like  Carlyle,  he  had 
a  deep-rooted  disbelief  in  the  ability  of  the  people  to 
exercise  political  power.  Democracy  meant  the  over- 
throw of  government  and  the  rule  of  the  mob,  with 
everybody  scrambling  to  be  uppermost;  it  meant  the 
vast  upheaval  of  an  untamed  populace,  believing  in 
magnitude  instead  of  nobleness,  and  totally  ignorant 
of  the  higher  arts   and  amenities  of  life.     Ruskin 

1  Works,  XVII,  487.  Cf.  ibid.,  266,  192-3,  intro.  CIX.  Ruskin  never 
attempted  to  say  how  far  the  independence  and  superior  abihty  of  an 
individual  should  be  permitted  to  go  in  the  accumulation  of  private 
property.  He  was  r;o  doubt  wise  in  this,  since  the  problem  taken  theoret- 
ically seems  hopeless.  Time  and  education  and  actual  conditions  must 
bring  the  solution  nearer  from  generation  to  generation.  On  two  points, 
moreover,  he  was  clear  and  consistent:  the  right  of  a  person,  within  limits, 
to  what  he  earned;  and  the  necessity  for  limitation  of  large  incomes.  As 
to  whether  such  limitation  should  be  compulsory  or  voluntary,  he  wav- 
ered, now  favoring  the  one  method,  now  the  other.  In  either  case  he 
recognized  the  difficulty:  "no  action  can  be  taken  in  redistribution  of  land 
or  in  limitation  of  the  incomes  of  the  upper  classes,  without  grave  and 
prolonged  civil  disturbance."  {Works,  XVII,  436.)  What  he  undoubtedly 
hoped  for  was  a  gradual  change  in  the  social  consciousness  toward  riches, 
together  with  a  tax  on  incomes  and  a  tax  on  luxuries,  so  that  in  the  end 
superior  ability  would  be  paid  a  reasonable  salary  for  superintendence, 
but  would  not  wish  to,  nor  be  permitted  to,  have  its  reward  in  large 
personal  property. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  249 

identified  political  liberty  with  licence,  or  the  aban- 
donment of  illiterate  masses  to  their  appetites.  For 
the  machinery  of  popular  government, — the  party 
system,  elections,  parliaments, — he  had  almost  noth- 
ing but  scorn  and  derision.  "If  you  have  read  any 
of  my  late  works  (any  of  my  political  works  at  all, 
lately  or  long  since  written),"  he  wrote  to  a  corre- 
spondent in  1869,  "you  must  have  seen  that  they  all 
speak  with  supreme  contempt  of  the  'British  Consti- 
tution,' of  elections  and  popular  opinion,  and,  above 
all,  of  'Liberty.'  .  .  .  The  wisest  system  of  voting 
that  human  brains  could  devise  would  be  of  no  use  as 
long  as  the  majority  of  the  voters  were  fools,  which  is 
manifestly  as  yet  the  fact."  ^  All  these  instrumental- 
ities of  democracy  were  to  him  synonymous  with 
popular  disturbances,  with  hypocrisies,  with  endless 
balancing  of  conflicting  personal  interests,  and  with 
bribery  and  corruption  on  a  wide  scale.  At  the 
moment  when  Disraeli  was  introducing  the  Reform 
Bill  of  1867  into  Parliament,  Ruskin  challenged  the 
workingmen  of  England  to  say  if  they  had  intelligent 
convictions  upon  the  great  questions  of  labor  and 
national  policy:  "your  voices  are  not  worth  a  rat's 
squeak,  either  in  Parliament  or  out  of  it,  till  you  have 
some  ideas  to  utter  with  them."  ^  He  accepted 
universal  suffrage  as  inevitable,  but  he  believed  that 
the  electors  of  a  nation  should  have  votes  propor- 
tional to  their  education,  age,  wealth,  and  position,  so 
that  the  populace  could  be  kept  in  its  place. ^ 

'  Works,  XVII,  326n. 
^Ihid.,  XVII,  326. 

'  "  I  should  be  very  glad  if  it  were  possible  to  keep  the  common  people 
from  thmking  about  government,  but,  since  the  invention  of  printing,  it 


2SO  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

His  outlook  upon  the  political  movements  of  his 
day  thus  corresponded  exactly  with  Carlyle's.  By 
gross  misgovernment  the  aristocracy  had  deservedly 
lost  the  respect  of  the  lower  orders,  who  were  now 
threatening  to  overthrow  the  constitution  and  to 
substitute  a  republic,  which  Ruskin  could  only  look 
upon  as  political  anarchy.  As  he  read  the  signs  of 
the  times,  if  this  movement  went  on  unchecked,  with 
increasing  extravagance  among  the  upper  classes  and 
with  increased  license  among  the  lower,  the  only  way 
out,  after  the  populace  had  had  its  day  of  democracy, 
was  to  set  up,  for  a  time,  a  military  despotism  as  the 
forerunner  of  genuine  reconstruction, — a  Carlylean 
interpretation  of  events  through  and  through. ^ 
Ruskin's  distrust  of  the  capacity  of  the  people  for 
political  power,  therefore,  implies  the  same  curious 
paradox  that  we  found  in  Carlyle, — a  bold  and 
pioneer  championship  of  the  workers  against  oppres- 
sion of  every  kind  and  a  well-nigh  fanatical  opposition 
to  all  their  efforts  to  secure  political  freedom  as  a 
basis  and  guarantee  of  social  reform.  Despite  his 
belief  in  universal  education,  when  he  came  to  con- 
sider the  larger  matters  of  state  administration  and 
control,  he  could  not  conquer  the  conviction  that  for 

is  not — of  all  impossibilities  that  is  now  the  most  so;  the  only  question  is 
how  to  make  them  of  exactly  the  proper  weight  in  the  State,  and  no 
more."      {Works,  XII,  intro.  LXXXIII.)    Cf.  XVII,  253;  XXXIV,  499, 

*"A  nation  once  utterly  corrupt  can  only  be  redeemed  by  des- 
potism— never  by  talking,  nor  by  its  free-  effort.  .  .  .  The  Brit- 
ish Constitution  is  breaking  fast.  .  .  .  The  gipsy  hunt  is  up 
also;  .  .  .  and  the  hue  and  cry  loud  against  your  land  and  you; 
your  tenure  of  it  is  in  dispute  before  a  multiplying  mob."  (JForks, 
XVIII,  484;  XXVIII,  152,  151;  Cf.  XVII,  264;  XVIII,  497;  XXVIII, 

152.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  251 

these  higher  responsibilities  the  masses  of  mankind 
would  remain  unfit. ^ 

Politically  speaking,  Ruskin  could  see  an  ordered 
society  only  as  made  up  of  two  classes, — the  lordly 
and  the  servile,  those  born  to  rule  and  those  born  to 
be  ruled;  and  "  the  whole  health  of  the  state,"  he  said, 
"depends  on  the  manifest  separation  of  these  two 
elements."  -  Every  man  in  the  kingdom  should  be 
"equally  well  educated"  with  every  other;  yet  the 
result  would  only  bring  into  clearer  light  the  eternal 
differences  among  men.  There  was  not  a  sentence  in 
his  writings,  Ruskin  declared  in  1884,  "implying 
that  the  education  of  all  should  be  alike,  or  that  there 
is  to  be  no  distinction  of  master  from  servant,  or  of 
scholar  from  clown."  ^  In  i860  he  appeared  before  a 
parliamentary  committee  to  testify  as  to  his  teaching 
in  the  Working  Men's  College,  and  when  asked  if  he 
did  not  think  that  the  desire  to  rise  out  of  their  class 
was  almost  inseparable  from  the  instruction  that  the 
men  received  from  him,  he  replied:  "I  should  think 
not;  I  think  that  the  moment  a  man  desires  to  rise 

'  The  agreement  of  Ruskin  with  Carlyle  on  political  principles  is  shown 
in  the  following  strongly  Carlylean  passages:  "The  essential  thing  for  all 
creatures  is  to  be  made  to  do  right;  how  they  are  made  to  do  it — by 
pleasant  promises,  or  hard  necessities,  pathetic  oratorj',  or  the  whip — is 
comparatively  immaterial."  (XVII,  255.)  "Religion,  primarily,  means 
'Obedience' — bending  to  something,  or  some  one."  (XXVIII,  156.) 
"The  wise  man  knows  his  master.  Less  or  more  wise,  he  perceives  lower 
or  higher  masters;  but  always  some  creature  larger  than  himself — some 
law  holier  than  his  own. "  (XXVIII,  343.)  "Of  all  the  puppet-shows  in  the 
Satanic  carnival  of  the  earth,  the  most  contemptible  puppet-show  is  a 
Parliament  with  a  mob  pulling  the  strings."  (XII,  552.)  "In  the  modern 
Liberal  there  is  a  new  and  wonderful  form  of  misguidance. "  (XXVII, 
179.)    CJ.  passage  on  the  fly  as  a  type  of  liberty, — XIX,  123. 

»  Works,  XVII,  236.     CJ.  ibid.,  228. 

»  Ibid.,  XXIX,  499. 


252  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

out  of  his  own  class,  he  does  his  work  badly  in  it;  he 
ought  to  desire  to  rise  in  his  own  class,  and  not  out  of 
it."  *  It  was  the  duty  of  such  men — the  workers,  the 
servers — to  stick  to  their  appointed  tasks  like  good 
soldiers,  and  not  to  meddle  with  politics  and  problems 
of  government.  It  was  their  duty  to  render  to  their 
superiors  obedience  and  reverence;  for  Ruskin,  like 
Carlyle,  regarded  these  virtues  as  the  rocks  upon 
which  all  sound  politics  must  forever  rest.  Just  as 
the  elements  of  the  universe,  the  stars,  the  earth  in 
its  revolutions,  the  waters  of  the  sea,  act  in  obedience 
to  law,  so,  too,  should  inferior  men  respect  the  au- 
thority of  superior  men,  venerate  the  good  in  them, 
be  faithful  to  them  in  appointed  duties, — in  a  word 
be  utterly  loyal  in  all  the  relations  of  life. 

In  politics  it  is  clear  that  Ruskin  was  an  aristocrat 
and  conservative,  bred  in  the  bone,  dyed  in  the  blood. 
He  called  himself  "a  violent  Illiberal";  "I  am,  and 
my  father  was  before  me,  a  violent  Tory  of  the  old 
school  (Walter  Scott's  school,  that  is  to  say,  and 
Homer's),"  -  From  Scott  and  Homer  in  boyhood, 
just  as  from  Plato  and  Carlyle  in  maturity,  he 
imbibed  eternal  fidelity  to  conservatism  and  "strange 
ideas  about  kings."  ^  His  long  study  of  art,  moreover, 
taught  him  the  significance  of  distinctions,  the 
immense  superiority  of  a  Turner,  for  example,  over  a 

1  Works,  XVI,  474.    Cf.  XVII,  397. 

mid.,  XXVII,  167. 

^Although  Ruskin's  sober  convictions  were  undoubtedly  in  favor  of  a 
governing  aristocracy  of  intellect,  he  retained  to  the  end  of  his  days  a 
romantic  and  a:cthetic  reverence  for  old  castles  and  for  the  distinctions  of 
a  more  or  less  feudalistic  social  order.  "  I  hate  republicans,  as  I  do  all 
other  manner  of  fools,"  he  once  said  in  whimsical  irritation.  "I  love 
Lords  and  Ladies;  and  Earls  and  Countesses,  and  Marquises  and  Mar- 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  253 

Stanfield.  It  was  thus  inevitable  for  him  to  look  to 
the  aristocracy  to  be  the  rulers  and  lawgivers  of  the 
state.  "To  them,"  he  said,  "be  they  few  or  many, 
we  English  people  call  for  help  to  the  v.retchedness, 
and  for  rule  over  the  baseness,  of  multitudes  desolate 
and  deceived,  shrieking  to  one  another  this  new  gospel 
of  their  new  religion:  'let  the  weak  do  as  they  can, 
and  the  wicked  as  they  will'.  .  .  .  The  office  of  the 
upper  classes,  as  a  body,  is  to  keep  order  among  theirs 
inferiors,  and  raise  them  always  to  the  nearest  level 
with  themselves  of  which  these  inferiors  are  capable. 
So  far  as  they  are  thus  occupied,  they  are  Invariably 
loved  and  reverenced  Intensely  by  all  beneath  them, 
and  reach,  themselves,  the  highest  types  of  human 
power  and  beauty."  ^ 

Apart  from  the  condition  that  the  rulers,  at  peril 
of  their  places,  were  to  rule  the  people  wisely,  and 
were  not  to  represent  them,  Ruskin  was  not  much 
concerned  about  the  form  of  government.  The 
central  authority  might  be  vested  In  king,  council,  or 
parliament,  according  to  the  genius  and  tradition  of 
the  nation  concerned.  "The  stuff  of  which  the  nation 
Is  made  is  developed  by  the  effort  and  the  fate  of 
ages,"  he  declared;  "according  to  that  material,  such 

chionesses,  and  Honorables,  and  Sirs"  {fVorks,  XXVIII,  547.)  He 
showed  the  violence  of  his  tor>ism  more  than  once  in  his  championship 
of  strong  authority,  as  well  as  in  his  contempt  of  popular  struggles  for 
liberty,  such  as  were  going  on  in  America  1 861-1865. 

^fVorks,  XVIII,  499;  XVII,  430.  In  his  lecture  on  The  Future  of 
England  (1869)  Ruskin  pointed  out  that  no  answer  had  come  to  the 
question  put  by  the  Saturday  Review,  "What  is  to  become  of  the  House  of 
Lords?";  and  therefore  "it  seems  thus  to  become  needful  for  all  men  to 
tell  them,  as  our  one  quite  clear-sighted  teacher,  Carlyle,  has  been  telling 
us  for  many  a  year,  that  the  use  of  the  Lords  of  a  country  is  to  govern  the 
country."  (XVIII,  498.) 


254  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

and  such  government  becomes  possible  to  it,  or 
impossible."  ^  His  view  is  characteristically  British 
at  this  point;  for  he  conceived  of  the  forms  of  govern- 
ment as  of  slow  growth.  The  structure  of  a  state 
might  be  blown  up,  like  a  ship,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye;  but  to  build  up  a  code  of  laws,  to  appoint  means 
for  their  execution,  to  stabilize  the  vast  mechanism 
of  a  state, — this  could  not  be  done  in  an  instant,  by 
beat  of  drum.  Let  particular  forms  of  government, 
however,  be  what  they  might,  any  form  would  work 
provided  its  purpose  was  '''the  production  and  recog- 
nition of  human  worth,  and  the  detection  and  extinc- 
tion of  human  unworthiness."  ^ 

But  how  is  the  state  to  accomplish  this  great 
purpose,  so  as  to  effect  progress?  Where  are  the 
leaders  to  be  found  who  will  lead,  and  how  are  the 
*' people"  to  be  induced  to  follow  them  obediently  and 
reverently?  What  is  to  give  society  its  initial  push  in 
the  right  direction,  so  that  it  can  begin  its  upward 
march  out  of  the  slough  into  which  it  has  fallen? 
These  are  the  final  challenging  questions  that  we 
must  put  to  Ruskin,  as  we  did  to  Carlyle.  No  man 
saw  the  social  injustice  in  the  work  about  him  with 
clearer  vision  than  Ruskin,  and  no  man,  not  even 
Carlyle,  hurled  against  it  stronger  attacks,  sustained 
year  after  year,  with  blow  upon  blow.  "The  people," 
he  said,  "have  begun  to  suspect  that  one  particular 
form  of  misgovernment  has  been  that  their  masters 
have  set  them  to  do  all  the  work  arid  have  themselves 
taken  all  the  wages.  In  a  word,  that  what  was  called 
governing  them  meant  only  wearing  fine  clothes  and 

1  Works,  XXVII,  23S.  2  iiii^^  XVII,  446. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  255 

living  on  good  fare  at  their  expense.  And  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  the  people  are  quite  right  in  this  opinion  too. 
If  you  enquire  into  the  vital  fact  of  the  matter, 
this  you  will  find  to  be  the  constant  structure  of 
European  society  for  the  thousand  years  of  the  feudal 
system;  it  was  divided  Into  peasants  who  lived  by 
digging;  priests  who  lived  by  begging;  and  knights 
who  lived  by  pillaging;  and  as  the  luminous  public 
mind  becomes  fully  cognizant  of  these  facts,  it  will 
assuredly  not  suffer  things  to  be  altogether  arranged 
that  way  any  more."  ^  So  spoke  the  prophet,  and  so 
he  spoke  with  increasing  vehemence  in  his  later  years. 
In  the  spirit  of  a  prophet,  too,  he  turned  from  the 
democratic  movements  of  the  day  as  a  means  of 
carrying  out  his  elaborate  and  far  sighted  plans  of 
industrial  reconstruction,  and  called  upon  a  wayward 
people  "to  repent."  In  other  words,  industrial  reform 
was  really  to  be  set  going  not  by  political  changes 
first  of  all,  npr  by  a  collective  sanction  of  /ega/  meanSy 
but  by  a  voluntary  reformation  of  the  individual.  As 
Professor  Hobson  justly  points  out,  Ruskin  thus 
found  "the  spring  of  progress  in  the  individual  will." 
"All  effectual  advancement  towards  this  true  felicity 
of  the  human  race,"  said  Ruskin,  "must  be  by  indi- 
vidual effort.  Certain  general  measures  may  aid, 
certain  revised  laws  guide,  such  advancement;  but 
the  measure  and  law  which  have  first  to  be  determined 
are  those  of  each  man's  home."  ^ 

He,  therefore,  first  appealed  to  the  aristocracy  to 
change  their  ways  before  the  rising  floods  of  anarchic 
democracy  overwhelmed  them.     To  the  rich  every- 

»  fForks,  XVIII,  496.  2  ji,ij_^  XVII,  1 1 1. 


256  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

where  he  said  in  effect:  "see  for  yourselves  what 
degradation  your  extravagance  is  bringing  upon 
multitudes  of  mankind  who  toil  in  filthy  factories  and 
swarm  in  crowded  tenements;  and  seeing,  be  strong 
enough  to  sacrifice  all  convenience,  beauty,  or  cheap- 
ness that  you  get  through  such  degradation,  and  to 
live  with  as  little  aid  from  the  lower  trades  as  you 
possibly  can  contrive."  As  an  interesting  illustration 
of  what  could  be  done  through  individual  initiative 
of  this  kind,  Ruskin  instanced  the  way  in  which  he 
believed  that  the  misery  in  the  crowded  suburbs  of  so 
vast  a  city  as  London  might  be  relieved:  "any  man  of 
influence  who  had  the  sense  and  courage  to  refuse 
himself  and  his  family  one  London  season — to  stay  on 
his  estate,  and  employ  the  shopkeepers  in  his  own 
village,  instead  of  those  in  Bond  Street — would  be 
practically  dealing  with,  and  conquering,  this  evil,  so 
far  as  in  him  lay;  and  contributing  with  his  whole 
might  to  the  thorough  and  final  conquest  of  it."  ^  He 
called  upon  the  landlords,  as  we  have  seen,  volun- 
tarily to  fix  their  rents  upon  a  just  basis  and  to  guar- 
antee to  their  tenants  a  fair  compensation  for  im- 
provements. He  called  upon  them,  also,  voluntarily 
to  fix  their  incomes  within  reasonable  limits,  setting 
aside  all  surplus  for  the  benefit  of  land  and  tenants. 
His  demand  upon  the  captains  of  industry  was  of  like 
character.  "Treat  your  ordinary  workmen,"  he  said 
to  them,  "exactly  as  you  would  treat  your  son  if  he 
were  in  their  position":  "this  is  the  only  effective, 
true,  or  practical  rule  which  can  be  given  on  this  point 
of  political  economy."     Addressing  the  students  of 

1  Works,  XXVII,  175. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  257 

the  Royal  Military  Academy  in  1869 — young  men  of 
the  upper  classes, — he  told  them  in  vivid  language  of 
the  evil  times  on  which  they  had  fallen.  "Whose 
fault  is  it?"  he  asked.  "Yours,  gentlemen,  yours 
only.  You  alone  can  feed  (the  people),  and  clothe, 
and  bring  into  their  right  minds,  for  you  only  can 
govern."  He  thereupon  appealed  to  these  aristo- 
cratic youths  to  lead  in  all  reform — in  education,  in 
social  betterment, — and  to  begin  by  showing  the 
masses  how  to  spend.  Through  such  leadership  must 
England  be  saved:  "so  and  no  otherwise  can  we  meet 
existent  distress."  ' 

Ruskin's  last  word  to  the  workers  was  likewise  an 
appeal  to  the  individual.  "If  you  will  have  the 
upper  classes  do  their  duty,"  he  said,  "see  that  you 
also  do  yours.  See  that  you  can  obey  good  laws, 
and  good  lords,  or  law-wards,  if  you  once  get  them — 
that  you  believe  in  goodness  enough  to  know  what  a 
good  law  is.  A  good  law  is  one  that  holds,  whether 
you  recognize  or  pronounce  it  or  not;  a  bad  law  is  one 
that  cannot  hold,  however  much  you  ordain  and 
pronounce  it.  That  is  the  mighty  truth  which 
Carlyle  has  been  telling  you  for  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury."2  He  appealed  to  the  lower  classes  to  make 
the  three-fold  promise:  to  do  their  work  well,  whether 
for  life  or  death,  to  help  others  at  their  work  and  to 
seek  to  avenge  no  injury,  and  to  obey  good  laws 
before  trying  to  alter  bad  ones.  Such  was  all  the  law 
and  all  the  prophets.  Political  salvation  for  the 
workers,  therefore,  was  summed  in  the  command, 
"Find  your  true  superiors,  reverence  their  worth,  obey 
^  Works,  XVIII,  502,  508.  ^Ibid.,  XXVII,  178. 


258  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

their  word,  and  stick  to  your  task"; — a  truly  astonish- 
ing conclusion  to  a  social  program  of  which  much 
was  and  still  remains  so  splendidly  idealistic  and 
revolutionary. 

Part  111 — Utopia 

But  the  prophet  believed  in  >  his  message  to  the 
uttermost,  and  through  many  years  and  in  various 
ways  he  strove  to  show  to  the  world  his  faith  by  his 
works.  Nothing  angered  him  more  than  the  re- 
proach of  sentimentality  or  the  insinuation  that  all 
his  ideals  and  schemes  were  at  best  no  better  than 
beautiful  dreams.  Of  his  burning  sensitiveness  to  the 
miseries  and  follies  of  mankind,  we  have  had  abun- 
dant evidence  in  the  preceding  pages;  his  "pervi- 
vacity"  of  temperament,  as  he  called  it,  is  conspicu- 
ous everywhere.  ^  He  was  fairly  maddened,  therefore, 
to  find  his  visions  of  a  better  social  order  regarded  as 
insubstantial  as  a  mirage,  and  to  have  his  political 
economy  dismissed  contemptuously  as  "eflfeminate 
sentimentality." 

Against  such  insinuations  Ruskin  insisted  upon  his 
"intensely  practical  and  matter-of-fact"  nature. 
Above  all  things  he  wished  that  the  public  should  not 
consider  him  a  mere  theorist  and  doctrinaire,  paint- 
ing word-pictures  lovely  to  read,  but  with  no  real 
message  to  men.  Readers  of  Modern  Painters  will 
recall  that  in  the  prefaces  to  the  first  and  third  vol- 

1  The  heart  of  Dean  Swift  was  not  more  swept  by  the  fires  of  indigna- 
tion. "I  have  been  reading  Dean  Swift's  Life,"  he  wrote  to  his  mother  in 
1869,  "and  Gulliver's  Travels  again.  Putting  the  dehght  in  dirt,  which  is 
a  mere  disease,  aside,  Swift  is  very  Hke  me,  in  most  things,  in  opinions 
exactly  the  same."    (Cook,  Life,  II,  547.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGK  .  259 

umes  he  seemed  to  anticipate  Whistler's  sneer  about 
a  man's  talking  for  forty  years  of  what  he  has  never 
done,  when  he  referred  to  his  long  study  of  practical 
art  and  pointed  out  his  share  in  the  drawings  and 
illustrations  for  the  work.  It  was  the  same  with  the 
crafts  and  the  rougher  forms  of  labor.  "Half  my 
power  of  ascertaining  facts  of  any  kind  connected  with 
the  arts,"  he  said,  "is  my  stern  habit  of  doing  the 
thing  with  my  own  hands  till  I  know  its  difficulty;  and 
though  I  have  no  time  nor  wish  to  acquire  showy  skill 
in  anything,  I  make  myself  clear  as  to  what  the  skill 
means,  and  is.  Thus,  when  I  had  to  direct  road- 
making  at  Oxford,  I  sate,  myself,  with  an  iron-masked 
stone-breaker,  on  his  heap,  to  break  stones  beside  the 
London  road,  just  under  Iffley  Hill,  till  I  knew  how  to 
advise  my  too  impetuous  pupils  to  effect  their  pur- 
pose in  that  matter,  instead  of  breaking  the  heads  of 
their  hammers  off  (a  serious  item  in  our  daily  ex- 
penses). I  learned  from  an  Irish  street  crossing- 
sweeper  what  he  could  teach  me  of  sweeping;  but 
found  myself  in  that  matter  nearly  his  match,  from 
my  boy-gardening;  and  again  and  again  I  swept  bits 
of  St.  Giles'  foot-pavements,  showing  my  corps  of 
subordinates  how  to  finish  into  depths  of  gutter.  I 
worked  with  a  carpenter  until  I  could  take  an  even 
shaving  six  feet  long  off  a  board;  and  painted  enough 
with  properly  and  delightfully  soppy  green  paint  to 
feel  the  master's  superiority  in  the  use  of  a  blunt 
brush.  But  among  all  these  and  other  such  student- 
ships, the  reader  will  be  surprised,  I  think,  to  hear, 
seriously,  that  the  instrument  I  finally  decided  to  be 
the  most  difficult  of  management  was  the  trowel. 


26o  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

For  accumulated  months  of  my  boy's  life  I  watched 
bricklaying  and  paving;  but  when  I  took  the  trowel 
into  my  own  hand,  abandoned  at  once  all  hope  of 
attaining  the  least  real  skill  with  it,  unless  I  gave  up 
all  thoughts  of  any  future  literary  or  political  career."  ^ 
Ruskin's  life  is  filled  with  what  his  biographer  calls 
his  "passion  for  practice,"  from  the  planting  and 
pruning  and  cultivating  of  trees  at  Coniston,  from  his 
treatment  of  domestic  servants  and  his  numberless 
private  benefactions  in  money  and  books  and  pic- 
tures, to  his  active  interest  in  the  educational  life  of 
various  institutions,  including  his  establishment  of 
the  Ruskin  drawing  school  at  Oxford,  with  its  fine 
collection  of  specimens.  It  was  the  same  with  his 
social  experiments.  He  was  not  content  to  state  what 
must  be  done.  He  wished  to  demonstrate  a  method 
of  realization.  He  disclaimed  any  intention  of  setting 
himself  up  "either  for  a  champion  or  a  leader,"  but 
he  believed  that  some  example  of  what  he  knew  to  be 
necessary  might  convince  others,  better  qualified  to 
lead,  of  the  feasibility  of  his  ideals.  And  so  it  came 
about  during  the  active  period  of  his  life  that  Ruskin, 
"the  Don  Quixote  of  Denmark  Hill,"  as  he  playfully 
called  himself,  was  occupied  with  various  experiments 
in  social  reform,  some  undertaken  independently, 
some  in  co-operation  with  others,  but  all  in  the  ardent 
effort  to  point  out  to  a  perverse  generation  what 
might  be  effected  toward  the  realization  of  beauty 
and  love  and  justice  in  an  actual  world. 

One  of  the  earliest  movements  with  which  he  was 
associated  was  the  Working  Men's  College,  started 

» Works,  XXXV,  427. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  261 

by  F.  D.  Maurice  in  1854,  for  the  laboring  classes  in 
East  London.  Established  at  a  time  when  education 
(except  in  the  most  elementary  form)  did  not  reach 
the  common  people,  it  was  the  aim  of  the  college  to 
bring  to  a  segment  of  the  masses  at  least  the  same 
kind  of  education  that  the  upper  classes  enjoyed. 
Dr.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  "a  humble  disciple  and  friend" 
of  Ruskin,  sent  him  a  prospectus  of  the  enterprise, 
and  Ruskin  responded  with  an  offer  to  Maurice  to 
take  the  classes  in  art.  His  chapter  on  ''The  Nature 
of  Gothic,"  through  Furnivall's  initiative,  was  dis- 
tributed as  a  manifesto  to  all  who  came  to  the  opening 
meeting  on  October  31.  Inspired  by  Ruskin's  ex- 
ample, Rossetti,  Burne-Jones,  Ford  Madox  Brown, 
and  others  volunteered  their  services  for  longer  or 
shorter  periods.  With  the  exception  of  summer 
terms,  when  his  attendance  was  irregular,  Ruskin 
taught  drawing  classes  in  the  college  from  1854  until 
May,  1858,  returning  again  for  a  term  in  the  spring  of 
i860.  He  was  from  the  first  an  enthusiastic  and 
successful  teacher,  if  we  may  judge  from  such  ac- 
counts as  have  come  to  us, — "wildly  popular  with  the 
men"  and  an  "eloquent"  talker,  as  Ford  Madox 
Brown  declared.  To  his  classroom  he  brought  a 
wealth  of  illustrative  material  from  the  Denmark 
Hill  home, — precious  stones,  bird-plumage,  draw- 
ings, missals,  even  some  of  the  treasured  Turners, 
and  always  liberal  supplies  of  the  best  drawing  paper. 
In  suitable  weather  sketching  expeditions  to  the  open 
country  around  Denmark  Hill  were  frequent,  con- 
cluding with  luncheon  there  or  at  some  convenient 
inn.    It  needs  scarcely  to  be  said  that  Ruskin  under- 


262  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

took  this  work,  not  in  the  spirit  of  the  aristocratic 
trifler,  carried  away  by  a  whim  of  fashion,  but  in  the 
spirit  of  a  reformer,  who  saw  in  the  Working  Men's 
College  an  organized  effort  to  offset  the  crushing 
results  of  competitive  industry,  by  bringing  to  the 
men  who  could  not  rise  out  of  their  class  a  means  of 
being  happier  within  it.  In  spite  of  this  interpreta- 
tion of  purpose,  however,  many  of  Ruskin's  pupils 
won  for  themselves  no  little  distinction  in  fields  of 
work  to  which  they  felt  called  as  a  result  of  his 
inspiration.^  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  out  of  his 
intimate  personal  contact  with  his  students  there 
came  to  him  an  idea,  which  he  called  his  **  Protestant 
Convent  Plan,"  of  establishing  a  community  of  crafts- 
men. Although  nothing  came  of  the  scheme,  one 
seems  to  catch  from  it  a  glimpse  of  the  guild  idea, 
which  was  first  mentioned  in  a  lecture  in  1857,  at  a 
time  when  his  teaching  at  the  college  was  a  fresh  and 
vivid  experience. 

Another  famous  instance  of  the  fascination  which 
Ruskin  exercised  over  young  men  (how  different  from 
the  East  London  group!)  was  the  quixotic  experiment 
in  road  mending  at  Oxford  by  a  company  of  under- 
graduates, since  known  to  all  the  world  as  the  Hink- 
sey  Diggers.  As  Slade  Professor  he  was  a  familiar 
and  notable  figure  at  the  University  for  many  years, 
lecturing  ostensibly  upon  art,  but  more  often  digres- 

*"  George  Allen  as  a  mezzotint  engraver,"  says  Collingwood,  "Arthur 
Burgess  as  a  draughtsman  and  woodcutter,  John  Bunney  as  a  painter  of 
architectural  detail,  W.  Jeffrey  as  an  artistic  photographer,  E.  Cooke  as  a 
teacher,  William  Ward  as  a  facsimile  copyist,  have  all  done  work  whose 
value  deserves  acknowledgment,  all  the  more  because  it  was  not  aimed  at 
popular  effect."     {tVorks,  V,  intra. ,  XLI.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  263 

sing  in  whimsical  fashion  into  all  manner  of  uncon- 
ventional subjects,  chiefly  social  and  economic.  It 
was  these  digressions  that  had  the  most  telling  effect 
upon  the  undergraduate  mind.  On  one  occasion, 
according  to  an  account  by  one  of  the  "diggers," 
Ruskin  dropped  some  remarks  "about  the  waste 
of  time  he  noticed  in  the  Oxford  world  of  athletics. 
He  could  not  but  believe  that  the  same  training  of 
muscles  might  be  turned  to  better  account,  if  only  the 
young  men,  as  they  labored  to  increase  the  muscles  of 
their  biceps  and  forearms,  would  try  to  help  others 
round  them  to  a  happier  life.  .  .  .  He  instanced 
the  need  of  good  roads  in  a  neighboring  village."  ^  He 
instanced  a  further  purpose.  He  wished  that  these 
Oxford  young  men,  who  lived  in  a  world  so  different, 
might  understand  for  themselves,  however  faintly, 
the  meaning  of  a  life  of  toil.  The  suggestion  awoke  a 
response.  A  group  of  twelve  Balliol  men  met  the 
Professor  at  breakfasts  in  his  college  rooms,  where 
arrangements  were  completed  and  allegiance  was 
sworn.  There  was  a  stretch  of  green  near  Ferry 
Hinksey,  two  miles  out  of  Oxford,  much  damaged  by 
the  ruts  of  carts  that  went  over  it  for  lack  of  road. 
Ruskin  obtained  permission  to  build  a  road  through 
this  green, — "a  Human  Pathway,"  it  was  to  be, 
"rightly  made  through  a  lovely  country,  and  rightly 
adorned."  Thither,  in  the  first  summer  term  of  1874, 
the  young  disciples  went,  "sixty  men,  in  relays  of 
twenties,  on  two  days  each  week,"  handling  pick  and 
barrow  and  spade  in  obedience  to  the  Master,  who 

^Atlantic  Monthly,  V.  85,  p.  573.     The  unsigned  article  was  probably 
written  by  Canon  Rawnsley. 


264  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

was  then  absent  in  Italy.  Later,  Ruskin  often  joined 
them,  directing  and  applauding  their  efforts  with  the 
zeal  of  one  who  was  conscious  of  trying  to  break 
something  far  harder  than  a  new  road, — the  rigid 
crust  of  Oxford  tradition.  The  experiment  was  of 
course  the  butt  of  jokers  and  cartoonists.  Dons  came 
to  scoff,  and  village  loafers  to  jeer.  "A  mile  or  so  of 
road  was  laid  out,"  says  Dean  Kitchin;  "it  led  to 
nowhere  in  particular,  unless  it  had  been  intended  to 
lead  to  a  comely  farm  on  the  hillside;  and  even  that 
it  did  not  reach.  When  I  saw  the  road,  about  a  year  or 
so  after,  it  showed  obvious  signs  of  decay.  No  pru- 
dent farmer  would  have  brought  his  carts  over  it;  he 
would  have  stuck  to  the  turf  of  the  open  meadow."  ^ 
Ruskin  himself  was  heard  to  admit  that  his  road 
was  "about  the  worst  in  the  three  kingdoms." 

But  the  Hinksey  digging  had  results  that  were  far 
from  ridiculous.  It  brought  a  number  of  promising 
undergraduates  into  intimate  touch  with  Ruskin,  who 
on  the  walks  to  and  from  Hinksey  and  at  the  break- 
fasts in  his  rooms  at  Corpus  Christi  unfolded  to  them, 
as  master  to  disciples,  his  hopes  and  fears  for  the 
future.  The  talk  was  free  and  plenteous  and  brilliant 
upon  all  manner  of  questions  relating  to  art  and 
society.  Among  the  undergraduate  followers  was 
\  Arnold  Toynbee,  a  foreman  among  the  diggers,  a 
young  man  of  gifted  mind  and  rarely  beautiful 
character,  whose  passion  for  social  service  among  the 
people  was  quickened  through  his  contact  with 
Ruskin.  Described  by  those  who  knew  him  best  as 
one  who  combined  the  mystical  ardor  of  a  medieval 

'  Ruskin  in  Oxford,  45. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  265 

saint  with  the  desire  to  serve  his  fellow  men  in  his 
own  time,  Toynbee  was  just  the  man  upon  whom 
Ruskin's  influence  might  fall  with  most  effect.  And 
it  is  indeed  difficult  not  to  believe  that  his  later  work 
both  among  the  East  London  poor  and  as  a  lecturer 
on  economic  questions  owed  much  to  the  inspiration 
of  the  "digging-parties,"  where,  as  Ruskin's  biog- 
rapher says,  "  the  seeds  were  sown,  or  watered,  of 
that  practical  interest  in  social  questions  which  was 
to  be  the  next  Oxford  Movement."! ^  For  Ruskin  was 
a  dreamer  of  Utopias  among  his  Oxford  students, 
even  as  he  had  been  a  dreamer  twenty  years  before 
among  the  Londoners  who  gathered  about  him  at  the 
Working  Men's  College;  and  in  a  letter  to  one  of  the 
Hinksey  Diggers  he  gave  expression  to  one  of  his 
dreams.  It  was  a  hope  that  some  of  them  might 
"band  themselves  together,  one  day,  and  go  out  in  a 
kind  of  Benedictine  brotherhood  to  cultivate  waste 
places  and  make  life  tolerable  in  our  great  cities  for 
the  children  of  the  poor."  ^ 

To  show  what  could  be  done  for  the  poor  in  great 
cities  he  made  three  experiments  in  the  crowded 
districts  of  London.  One  was  street-cleaning.  Rus- 
kin secured  permission  from  the  local  authorities  "in 
the  pleasant  environs  of  Church  Lane,  St.  Giles's," 
to  exhibit  to  the  populace  for  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
square,  "without  leaving  so  much  as  a  bit  of  orange 
peel  in  the  footway,  or  an  egg  shell  in  the  gutters." 
In  January,  1872,  he  assembled  a  small  troupe  of 
sweepers,  including  his  faithful  gardener  as  foreman, 

iG)ok,  Life  oj  Ruskin,  II,  190. 

*  Atlantic  Monthly,  V.  85,  pp.  572-6. 


266  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

and  himself  led  off  on  the  job,  broom  in  hand.  The 
enterprise  appears  to  have  collapsed  early.  "I 
failed,"  said  Ruskin,  "partly  because  I  chose  too 
difficult  a  district  to  begin  with  (the  contributions  of 
transitional  mud  being  constant,  and  the  inhabitants 
passive),  but  chiefly  because  I  could  no  more  be  on 
the  spot  myself,  to  give  spirit  to  the  men,  when  I  left 
Denmark  Hill  for  Coniston."  ^  The  next  experiment 
was  a  tea-shop  in  Paddington,  St.  Marylebone. 
Ruskin's  purpose,  he  said,  was  "  to  supply  the  poor  in 
that  neighborhood  with  pure  tea,  in  packets  as  small 
as  they  chose  to  buy,  without  making  a  profit  on  the 
subdivision."  ^  Over  the  door  was  placed  a  sign, 
"Mr.  Ruskin's  Tea-Shop"  (painted  by  Mr.  Arthur 
Severn),  the  window  was  ornamented  with  old  china 
"bought  at  Siena,"  and  two  of  his  mother's  old 
servants  were  put  in  charge.  The  business  ran,  with 
diminishing  returns,  for  two  years  (1874-76),  and  was 
then  given  up  after  the  death  of  one  of  the  keepers. 
But  long  before  the  shop  was  closed  Ruskin  had  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  he  could  not  successfully 
compete  with  the  other  more  brilliantly  lighted  shops 
or  with  the  increasing  consumption  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  less  innocent  liquids  than  tea. 

A  far  wiser  effort  in  social  welfare  was  an  experi- 
ment in  '*model  landlordism"  in  the  worst  part  of 
London,  carried  out  under  the  management  of  Miss 
Octavia  Hill,  a  young  woman  whose  passion  for  ser- 
vice found  its  opportunity  through  her  early  enthusi- 
asm for  Ruskin.  He  had  long  felt  that  the  rents 
exacted  from  the  ignorant  and  necessitous  poor  were 

1  Works,  XXVIII,  204.  2  ;^i^. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  267 

outrageous.  "The  most  wretched  houses  of  the  poor 
in  London,"  he  said,  "often  pay  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent 
to  the  landlord;  and  I  have  known  an  instance  of 
sanitary  legislation  being  hindered,  to  the  loss  of  many 
hundreds  of  lives,  in  order  that  the  rents  of  a  noble- 
man, derived  from  the  necessities  of  the  poor,  might 
not  be  diminished."  ^  Ruskin  had  inherited  from  his 
father  some  small  tenements,  and  he  now  bought  still 
others.  These  he  intrusted  to  the  stewardship  of  Miss 
Hill,  in  order  to  try  what  change  in  the  comforts  and 
habits  of  the  tenants  he  could  effect  "  by  taking  only  a 
just  rent,  but  that  firmly."  ^  If  the  idea  was  his,  the 
successful  realization  of  it  was  due  to  Miss  Hill,  She 
worked  without  pay  and  she  made  it  her  business  to 
keep  in  personal  touch  with  her  tenants.  To  them  the 
benefits  were  almost  immediate.  Profits  were  spent 
in  improvements,  overcrowding  was  much  reduced, 
decency  and  cleanliness  were  made  possible,  and  the 
people  themselves  began  to  rise  in  self-respect  and 
independence.  Miss  Hill  managed  these  tenements 
for  Ruskin  during  many  years,  but  finally  he  sold 
them  to  her,  after  an  estrangement  between  them, 
because  she  had  spoken  of  him  as  "unpractical,"  an 
epithet  which,  of  all  that  she  might  have  applied  to  a 
disappointed  and  tormented  spirit,  "was  the  fatal- 
est."  In  spite  of  this  unfortunate  experience,  he  was 
highly  and  justly  gratified  with  the  experiment,  and 
hoped  that  other  landlords  would  follow  his  example. 
But  he  was  under  no  illusion  concerning  its  temporary 
character.    "The  best  that  can  be  done  in  this  way," 

'  fVorks,  XVII,  437. 

*The  leasehold  property  paid  him  five  per  cent;  the  freehold,  three. 


268  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

he  said,  "will  be  useless  ultimately,  unless  the  deep 
source  of  the  misery  be  cut  off." 

But  the  attacks  upon  competitive  commercialism 
went  on,  regardless  of  the  shouts  of  ridicule  that  rose 
from  the  philistines.  While  he  had  strength  to  fight 
Ruskin  delivered  one  assault  after  another  upon  the 
strongholds  of  modern  business,  always  hoping,  with 
a  kind  of  forlorn  hope,  that  others,  stronger  and  wiser, 
would  enlist  in  the  struggle  until  the  enemy  would 
be  compelled  to  capitulate.  Like  the  experiment  in 
model  housing,  and  contrary  to  expectation,  his  next 
undertaking  proved  highly  successful.  When  Fors 
Clavigera  was  started  in  1871,  it  was  to  be  a  protest 
against  the  ways  of  the  modern  world  of  commerce; 
for  one  thing,  against  advertising  (puffery),  discounts, 
and  credits.  These  evils,  it  seemed  to  Ruskin,  were 
concentrated  in  the  book  business,  with  consequent 
injustice  alike  to  authors  and  public.  He  therefore 
decided  to  issue  Fors  (which  was  to  appear  monthly 
at  seven  pence  per  copy)  at  a  fixed  price  both  to  trade 
and  consumers,  allowing  no  discounts  and  no  credit 
even  for  purchases  in  quantity.  "This  absolute 
refusal  of  credit,  or  abatement,"  said  he,  "is  only  the 
carrying  out  of  a  part  of  any  general  method  of 
political  economy;  and  I  adopt  this  system  of  sale 
because  I  think  authors  ought  not  to  be  too  proud  to 
sell  their  own  books  any  more  than  painters  to  sell 
their  own  pictures."  ^  The  plan,  begun  for  Fors^  was 
gradually  expanded  to  include  all  of  Ruskin's  works. 
At  first  his  old  publishers,  Smith,  Elder,  and  Co.,  with 
the  co-operation  of  George  Allen,  one  of  the  students 

nVorks,  XXVII,  257. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  269 

in  the  drawing  classes  at  the  Working  Men's  College, 
undertook  to  carry  out  the  enterprise.  In  1873  ^^^ 
entire  management  was  turned  over  to  Mr.  Allen,  who 
set  up  the  publishing  business  at  Orpington,  Kent, 
twelve  miles  out  of  London,  in  his  cottage  *' Sunny- 
side," — "standing  in  its  own  grounds,  which  slope 
down  into  one  of  the  prettiest  vales  of  Kent."  The 
printing  was  likewise  done  in  the  country,  at  Ayles- 
bury, by  Messrs.  Hazell,  Watson,  and  Viney,  who 
had,  says  Mr.  Allen,  "quite  an  ideal  printing-office — 
with  light  and  cheerful  buildings,  allotment  gardens, 
recreation-ground,  clubs,  a  magazine,  and  all  the 
other  machinery  for  'mutual  improvement.'  "  Rus- 
kin's  ideal  was  the  establishment  of  a  happy  village 
industry,  wherefrom  the  middleman  should  be 
eliminated,  and  where  books  should  be  supplied  at 
fixed'prices  to  all  purchasers, — the  producer  answer- 
ing to  the  best  of  his  power  for  the  quality  of  the 
product,  "paper,  binding,  eloquence,  and  all";  and 
the  retail  dealer  charging  "what  he  ought  to  charge, 
openly."  ^  On  this  basis  the  plan  was  so  bitterly 
opposed  by  the  booksellers,  resulting  in  a  boycott  of 
his  books,  that  in  1882  Ruskin  agreed  to  a  modifica- 
tion. For  the  fixed  price  to  all  purchasers,  leaving  the 
booksellers  to  add  their  own  profit  if  they  chose,  he 
now  substituted  a  fixed  price  at  which  the  books 
should  be  retailed  to  the  public,  and  allowed  the  trade 
a  fixed  discount.  He  thus  became  the  pioneer  of  the 
"net  book  system."  Under  the  wise  control  of  Mr. 
Allen  the  business  prospered. ^    One  of  his  greatest 

^IVorks,  XXVII,    100. 

*"Last  year  (1886)  I  was  able  to  pay  over  to  Mr.  Ruskin,  as  his 


270  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

achievements  in  Ruskin's  lifetime  was  the  il 
edition  of  Modern  Painters  (actually  issued  in  May, 
1889),  from  which  it  was  estimated  that  Ruskin's 
share  in  the  profits  was  not  less  than  £6,000.  The 
enterprise  was  carried  out  in  a  way  that  must  have 
delighted  its  originator  (then  too  feeble  in  health  to 
take  an  active  part  in  it), — under  the  best  of  working 
conditions,  without  stint  in  labor  or  cost  of  material, 
and  with  the  sole  purpose  of  delivering  to  the  public 
a  guaranteed  article.  "I  need  not  add,"  says  Mr. 
Allen,  "that  (there)  was  no  machine-stitching  about 
it,  but  only  honest  hand-work."  ^ 

profit,  £4,000."  For  many  years  the  profits  were  as  much  as 
this. 

'  Carlyle  once  visited  the  publishing  plant  at  Orpington,  and  afterwards 
wrote  to  Emerson  of  Ruskin's  "strange  ways  towards  the  bibUopolic 
world." 

As  a  result  of  his  frequent  visits  to  the  Alps  and  Italy,  Ruskin  became 
greatly  absorbed  for  a  time  in  an  irrigation  project.  He  noted  with  dis- 
may the  constant  waste  and  destruction  caused  by  floods  from  Alpine 
torrents,  such  as  the  Arve,  the  Adige,  the  Ticino,  the  Rhone,  and  even  the 
Tiber.  In  1869  he  was  full  of  a  scheme  for  building  reservoirs  on  the 
upper  reaches  for  use  in  prevention  of  floods  and  for  irrigation.  He  tried 
to  interest  the  Alpine  Club.  On  his  visits  to  Carlyle  he  poured  out  his 
plans.  "One  day,"  said  Carlyle  to  Froude,  "by  express  desire  on  both 
sides,  I  had  Ruskin  for  some  hours,  really  interesting  and  entertaining. 
He  is  full  of  projects,  of  generous  prospective  activities,  some  of  which  I 
opined  to  him  would  prove  chimerical."  Ruskin  wrote  to  the  public 
press  on  the  subject,  and  his  letter  was  translated  into  Italian.  In  answer 
to  further  inquiries,  he  unfolded  his  ideas  more  fully.  "The  simplest 
and  surest  beginning,"  he  said,  "would  be  the  purchase,  either  by  the 
government  or  by  a  small  company  formed  in  Rome,  of  a  few  plots  of 
highland  in  the  Apennines,  now  barren  for  want  of  water,  and  valueless; 
and  the  showing  what  could  be  made  of  them  by  terraced  irrigation  such 
as  English  officers  have  already  introduced  in  many  parts  of  India.  The 
Agricultural  College  at  Cirencester  ought,  I  think,  to  be  able  to  send  out 
two  or  three  superintendents,  who  would  direct  rightly  the  first  processes 
of  cultivation,  choosing  for  purchase  good  soil  in  good  exposures.  .  .  . 
And  the  entire  mountain  side  may  be  made  one  garden  of  orange  and  vine 
and  olive  beneath;  and  a  wide  blossoming  orchard  above;  and  a  green 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  271 

None  of  these  experiments,  however,  not  even  this 
successful  venture  into  the  publishing  business,  had 
for  Ruskin  anything  like  the  significance  of  St.' 
George's  Guild,  a  scheme  of  social  reform  about  which 
he  thought  and  planned  down  to  his  last  working 
years,  and  out  of  which  he  evoked  some  of  his  most 
glowing  visions  of  a  better  order.  It  was  to  be  his  last 
stand  against  the  advancing  tide  of  modern  life,  a 
final  eflfort  to  slay  the  dragon  of  nineteenth-century 
industrialism.  To  his  eyes  the  evil  forces  of  modern 
civilization — everywhere  assembled  in  strength — 
were  sweeping  onward,  while  the  good  forces  were 
withdrawing  from  the  turmoil  and  the  foulness, 
eager  to  seek  shelter  in  quiet  retreats  scattered  over 
the  land.  With  small  beginnings  but  with  clear 
purposes,  Ruskin  hoped  to  show  how  the  sound 
elements  of  society  might  unite  in  a  crusade  against 
the  common  enemy.  More  particularly  he  wished  to 
draw  people  away  from  the  corruption  and  congestion 
of  modern  cities  to  the  free,  healthy  life  of  the  coun- 
try. He  had  hoped,  he  said,  that  by  187 1  the  "earnest 
adjuration  of  Carlyle"  in  Past  and  Present^  and  his 
own  analysis  of  "the  economical  laws  on  which  the 
real  prosperity  of  a  nation  depends,"  to  which  he  had 
given  his  best  thought  between  i860  and  1870,  would 
draw  attention  to  what  might  be  done  by  landlords 
who  should  devote  their  interests  to  the  welfare  of 

highest  pasture  for  cattle,  and  flowers  for  bees — up  to  the  edge  of  the 
snows  of  spring."  {fVorks,  XVII,  549,  552.)  Ruskin  always  thus  became 
quickly  enthusiastic  over  his  latest  scheme.  "If  I  had  followed  the  true 
bent  of  my  mind,"  he  once  said  to  a  friend,  "  I  should  have  been  a  civil 
engineer.  I  should  have  found  more  pleasure  in  planning  bridges  and  sea 
breakwaters  than  in  praising  modem  painters."     (XXXVII,  699.) 


272  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

the  peasantry  as  a  primary  and  not  as  a  secondary 
object.  Disappointed  in  this  expectation,  he  now 
determined  to  invite  any  who  had  yet  stout  hearts  to 
draw  together  and  initiate  a  true  and  wholesome  way 
of  life,  in  defiance  of  the  world.  He  resolved  to  see 
what  might  be  done  byVa  company  of  persons  pledged 
to  devote  a  portion  of  their  income  to  "the  purchase 
of  land  in  healthy  districts,  and  the  employment  of 
laborers  on  that  land,  under  the  carefullest  supervi- 
sion, and  with  every  proper  means  of  mental  instruc- 
tion." Ruskin  stated  his  purposes  more  fully  in  the 
following  words:  "This  Guild  was  originally  founded 
with  the  intention  of  showing  how  much  food-pro- 
ducing land  might  be  recovered  by  well-applied  labor 
from  the  barren  or  neglected  districts  of  nominally 
cultivated  countries.  With  this  primary  aim,  two 
ultimate  objects  of  wider  aim  were  connected:  the 
leading  one,  to  show  what  tone  and  degree  of  refined 
education  could  be  given  to  persons  maintaining 
themselves  by  agricultural  labor;  and  the  last,  to 
convince  some  portion  of  the  upper  classes  of  society 
that  such  occupation  was  more  honorable,  and  con- 
sistent with  higher  thoughts  and  nobler  pleasures, 
than  their  at  present  favorite  profession  of  war;  and 
that  the  course  of  social  movements  must  ultimately 
compel  many  to  adopt  it; — if  willingly,  then  hap- 
pily, both  for  themselves  and  their  dependents, — 
if  resistingly,  through  much  distress,  and  disturbance 
of  all  healthy  relations  between  "the  master  and  paid 
laborer."  ^  The  St.  George's  Guild  was  thus  an  effort 
ta  demonstrate  on  a  small  scale  what  could  be  done 

1  Works,  XXX,  17,  4S. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  273 

in  rational  organization  of  country  life.  It  was  an 
effort  also,  Ruskin  confessed,  to  draw  the  peasantry 
away  from  socialism  and  to  reduce  to  practice 
"Carlyle's  nobler  exhortation  in  Past  and  Present^ 
Should  fortune  deign  to  smile  upon  humble  begin- 
nings, no  man  could  predict  what  beneficent  revolu- 
tions might  be  effected  in  the  lives  of  English  men 
and  women! 

On  December  23,  1871,  Ruskin  set  aside  £7,000,  or 
a  tenth  of  his  fortune,  as  the  St.  George's  Fund,  and 
he  called  for  volunteers  to  join  him  in  giving  a  tenth 
of  their  incomes  or  whatever  they  could  afford  for 
general  charity.  They  were  to  be  organized  into 
a  company  for  the  purchase  of  land.  They  were  to  be 
under  the  control  of  a  master,  elected  by  a  majority 
of  the  members  and  liable  to  instant  deposal,  but 
while  in  office  exercising  autocratic  power.  Trustees 
were  appointed  to  take  charge  of  the  funds.  Rus- 
kin's  appeal,  however,  met  with  little  or  no  response. 
After  many  months  of  waiting,  he  wrote  in  Fors  (May, 
1872):  "Not  one  human  creature,  except  a  personal 
friend  or  two,  for  mere  love  of  me,  has  answered." 
Only  £236,  13s.  came  in  at  the  end  of  three  years. 
It  was  not  until  October,  1878,  after  endless  trouble 
with  the  law,  that  a  license  was  at  last  granted  to  the 
Guild  to  hold  lands. 

The  immediate  practical  plan  of  the  organization 
was  the  establishment  of  agricultural  communities. 
Land  was  to  be  bought  (or  given)  for  cultivation, 
"with  humble  and  simple  cottage  dwellings  under 
faultless  sanitary  regulation."  Existing  timber  was 
to  be  preserved  and  streams  kept  unpolluted.    Ten- 


274  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

ants  were  to  be  under  overseers,  appointed  by  the 
trustees.  They  were  to  occupy  the  land  under  long 
lease,  at  a  fixed  rent,  with  the  privilege  of  purchasing 
their  holding  if  they  could  save  the  price  of  it.  Mean- 
time the  rents  were  to  be  lowered  in  proportion  to 
every  improvement  by  the  tenant;  and  all  money 
accumulated  by  the  Guild  was  to  be  put  back  into 
the  land  that  most  needed  it.  The  size  of  the  allot- 
ment of  land  to  each  family  was  in  some  undefined 
way  to  be  proportional  to  the  family's  reasonable 
needs, — it  always  being  understood  that  no  man 
should  have  more  than  he  could  cultivate  with  his 
own  and  his  children's  efforts.  There  were  to  be  no 
machines  moved  by  steam-power.  All  work  was  to  be 
done  by  hand,  or  with  the  help  of  wind  and  water, 
and  perhaps  electricity.  Everything  that  the  farmers 
could  make  for  themselves  they  were  to  make.  They 
might  build  their  cottages  to  their  own  minds,  ex- 
cept "under  certain  conditions  as  to  materials  and 
strength."  ^  There  was  to  be  as  little  trade  or  impor- 
tation of  goods  from  outside  as  possible.  The  middle- 
man must  go.  Goods,  or  imported  foods,  were  to  be 
sold  at  fixed  prices,  and  according  to  a  fixed  standard 
of  quality,  by  salaried  tradesmen,  whose  books  "must 
always  be  open  on  the  Master's  order,  and  not  only 

^  Works,  XXVIII,  20.  As  to  the  tenants'  making  everything  for 
themselves,  Ruskin  repHed  to  a  woman  who  objected  to  working  at  the 
loom  while  raising  children  that  "if  on  those  terms  I  find  sufficient 
clothing  cannot  be  provided,  I  will  use  factories  for  them, — only  moved 
by  water,  not  steam."  The  members  of  St.  George  were  not  asked  to 
abjure  machinery  or  travel  on  railroads,  but  "they  should  never  do  with 
a  machine  what  can  be  done  with  hands  and  arms,  while  hands  and  arms 
are  idle."  {Ibid.,  248.)  Ruskin  also  consented  lo  the  uSe  of  the  sewing- 
machine,  though  he  preferred  hand-work. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  275 

(their)  business  position  entirely  known  but  (their) 
profits  known  to  the  public:  the  prices  of  all  articles 
of  general  manufacture  being  printed  with  the  percen- 
tages to  every  person  employed  in  their  production  or 
sale."  ^  Complete  publicity  of  all  commercial  trans- 
actions was  to  be  the  law,  all  accounts  of  the  masters 
and  overseers,  for  example,  being  open  for  inspection 
at  any  time. 

Not  only  the  economic  foundations,  but  the  educa- 
tional also,  were  to  be  strictly  Ruskinian.  Schools 
and  museums,  "always  small  and  instantly  service- 
able," would  be  established  in  the  villages.  Children 
were  to  be  taught  "compulsorily"  on  the  basis  of 
such  principles  as  Ruskin  had  long  advocated.  Ten- 
ants should  have  libraries  in  their  homes,  paid  for  out 
of  the  general  fund,  and  made  up  of  books  selected 
from  an  authorized  list.  Newspapers  were  prohibited. 
"What  final  relations,"  said  Ruskin,  "may  take 
place  between  masters  and  servants,  laborers  and 
employers,  old  people  and  young,  useful  people  and 
useless,  in  such  a  society,  only  experience  can  con- 
clude; nor  is  there  any  reason  to  anticipate  the 
conclusion."  Meantime  all  members  of  the  land- 
owning company — the  proprietors — must  subscribe 
to  the  following  eight  articles  of  St.  George's 
Creed: 

I.  "I  trust  in  the  Living  God,  Father  Almighty, 

Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  of  all  things 

and  creatures  visible  and  invisible. 

I  trust  in  the  kindness  of  His  law,  and  the 

goodness  of  His  work. 

'fVorks,  XXIX,  113. 


276  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

And  I  will  strive  to  love  Him,  and  keep 
His  law,  and  see  His  work,  while  I  live. 
II.  I  trust  in  the  nobleness  of  human  nature,  in 
the  majesty  of  its  faculties,  the  fulness  of 
its  mercy,  and  the  joy  of  its  love. 

And  I  will  strive  to  love  my  neighbor  as 
myself,  and,  even  when  I  cannot,  will  act 
as  if  I  did. 

III.  I  will  labor,  with  such  strength  and  oppor- 
tunity as  God  gives  me,  for  my  own  daily 
bread;  and  all  that  my  hand  finds  to  do,  I 
will  do  with  my  might. 

IV.  I  will  not  deceive,  or  cause  to  be  deceived, 
any  human  being  for  my  gain  or  pleasure; 
nor  hurt,  or  cause  to  be  hurt,  any  human 
being  for  my  gain  or  pleasure;  nor  rob,  or 
cause  to  be  robbed,  any  human  being  for 
my  gain  or  pleasure. 

V.  I  will  not  kill  nor  hurt  any  living  creature 
needlessly,  nor  destroy  any  beautiful  thing, 
but  will  strive  to  save  and  comfort  all  gentle 
life,  and  guard  and  perfect  all  natural 
beauty,  upon  the  earth. 
VI.  I  will  strive  to  raise  my  own  body  and  soul 
daily  into  higher  powers  of  duty  and  hap- 
piness; not  in  rivalship  or  contention  with 
others,  but  for  the  help,  delight,  and  honor 
of  others,  and  for  the  joy  and  peace  of  my 
own  life. 
VII.  I  will  obey  all  the  laws  of  my  country  faith- 
fully; and  the  orders  of  its  monarch,  and  of 
all   persons   appointed   to   be   in   authority 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  277 

under  its  monarch,  so  far  as  such  laws  or 
commands  are  consistent  with  what  I  sup- 
pose to  be  the  law  of  God;  and  when  they 
are  not,  or  seem  in  anywise  to  need  change, 
I  will  oppose  them  loyally  and  deliberately, 
not  with  malicious,  concealed,  or  disorderly 
violence. 
VIII.  And  with  the  same  faithfulness,  and  under 
the  limits  of  the  same  obedience,  which  I 
render  to  the  laws  of  my  country,  and  the 
commands  of  its  rulers,  I  will  obey  the  laws 
of  the  Society  called  St.  George,  into  which 
I  am  this  day  received;  and  the  orders  of 
its  masters,  and  of  all  persons  appointed  to 
be  in  authority  under  its  masters,  so  long 
as   I   remain   a   Companion,   called   of  St. 
George."  ^ 
Such  were  the  hopes  and  plans  for  a  better  society. 
"The   actual   realization,"    to   quote  Ruskin's  biog- 
rapher, "was  a  Master  who,  when  wanted  to  discuss 
legal  deeds,  was  often  drawing  leaves  of  anagallis 
tenella;  a  society  of  Companions,  few  and  uninfluen- 
tial;  some  cottages  in  Wales;  twenty  acres  of  partly 
cleared  woodland  in  Worcestershire;  a  few  bleak  acres 
in   Yorkshire;  ^  and  a  single   museum.     The   large 
schemes  for  the  reclamation  of  waste  land  and  the 
novel  use  on  a  great  scale  of  tides  and  streams  shrunk 
into  some  minute  gardening  experiments  at  Brant- 

1  JForks,  XXVIII,  419. 

'Cook  is  evidently  in  error  here,  since  the  "few  bleak  acres"  can  only 
mean  a  plot  of  thirteen  acres  at  Totley,  in  Derbyshire.  There  was  a 
"small  plot"  in  Yorkshire,  but  (to  quote  Cook)  only  of  "about  three- 
quarters  of  an  acre." 


278  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

wood."  ^  The  cottages  in  Wales,  eight  in  number, 
were  the  first  gift  to  St.  George.  They  were  situated 
on  the  high  cHffs  at  Barmouth,  overlooking  Cardigan 
Bay.  The  owner,  Mrs.  Talbot,  offered  them  to  Rus- 
kin  in  1874,  and  he  accepted  them  "at  once  with  very 
glad  thanks.  ...  No  cottagers,"  he  wrote,  "shall 
be  disturbed,  but  in  quiet  and  slow  ways  assisted,  as 
each  may  deserve  or  wish  to  better  their  own  houses 
in  sanitary  and  comfortable  points.  My  principle  is 
to  work  with  the  minutest  possible  touches,  but  with 
steady  end  in  view,  and  by  developing  as  I  can  the 
energy  of  the  people  I  want  to  help."  -  Ruskin  was 
as  good  as  his  word.  He  demanded  punctual  pay- 
ments of  rents  but  never  changed  the  rate,  and  he 
kept  up  the  property  out  of  funds  from  the  Guild. 
As  a  result  the  tenants  lived  out  their  lives  in  content- 
ment, regarding  their  cottages  as  homes  rather  than 
as  temporary  dwellings.  No  doubt  much  of  the 
success  of  the  enterprise  was  due  to  the  devoted  and 
direct  management  of  Mrs.  Talbot,  who  was  in  charge 
as  late  as  1900,  according  to  an  account  by  Miss 
Blanche  Atkinson.  "Year  by  year,  any  little  im- 
provement which  can  add  to  the  comfort  of  the 
cottagers  is  carried  out  under  her  orders,"  says  Miss 
Atkinson;  "a  larger  window  here,  a  new  fireplace 
there,  an  extra  room  contrived,  as  the  children  begin 
to  grow  up.  But  the  chief  aim  is  to  keep  the  cottages 
at  the  original  low  rentals,  so  that  the. poor  may  be 
able  to  stay  in  their  old  homes;  and  nothing  is  done  to 
change  the  entirely  cottage  character  of  the  dwellings. 

*  Life  of  Ruskin,  II,  335. 

8  Works,  XXX,  intro.,  XXIX. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  279 

Of  course,  no  tenant  would  be  accepted  unless  of 
good  character;  and  the  knowledge  that  rent  must  be 
paid  punctually,  that  no  real  discomfort  or  inconven- 
ience will  be  overlooked — if  it  can  be  remedied — and 
that  each  one  is  personally  known,  cared  for  in  sick- 
ness, and  helped  in  any  difficulty,  is  an  immense 
incentive  to  good  conduct."  ^  The  second  gift  to  St. 
George  was  twenty  acres  of  woodland  in  Worcester- 
shire, the  donation  of  Mr.  George  Baker,  a  member 
of  the  Guild  and  at  that  time  (i 876-1 877)  mayor  of 
Birmingham.  "The  ground  is  in  copse-wood,"  said 
Ruskin,  "but  good  for  fruit  trees;  and  shall  be 
cleared  and  brought  into  bearing."  A  beginning  was 
made.  Ruskin  even  thought  at  one  time  of  building 
a  museum  upon  the  property.  But  his  plans  came  to 
nothing.  "The  Guild,"  says  Cook  (1907),  "has 
recently  built  a  good  farm-cottage  on  the  land,  for 
the  purpose  of  letting  it  as  a  fruit  farm."  Another 
experiment  in  land-holding  by  the  Guild  met  with 
much  the  same  fate.  "  A  few  of  the  Sheffield  working- 
men,"  said  Ruskin,  "who  admit  the  possibility  of  St. 
George's  notions  being  just,  have  asked  me  to  let 
them  rent  some  ground  from  the  Company,  where- 
upon to  spend  what  spare  hours  they  have,  of  morn- 
ing or  evening,  in  useful  labor."  He  responded  to 
this  appeal  by  the  purchase  in  1877  of  thirteen  acres 
of  "waste"  ground  some  six  miles  out  of  Sheffield,  at 
Totley,  in  Derbyshire.  He  knew  little  of  the  plans  of 
these  Sheffield  workers,  some  of  whom  were  shoe- 
makers; but  he  determined  not  to  interfere,  at  least 
until    he    saw    developments.      St.    George    would 

*  Ruskin  s  Social  Expfrimenl  at  Barmouth,  24. 


28o  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

require  of  them  the  observance  only  of  "bare  first 
principles — good  work,  and  no  moving  of  machinery 
by  fire."  Details  of  what  happened  are  wanting,  but 
the  scheme  appears  to  have  fallen  through  very  early 
as  a  result  of  disagreements  or  misunderstandings. 
"The  proposed  allotments,"  says  Cook,  who  should 
know,  if  anyone,  "had  a  short  and,  I  believe,  some- 
what stormy  career,  and  Ruskin  fell  back  upon  a 
favorite  resource  on  occasions  of  this  kind;  that  is  to 
say,  he  called  his  old  gardener,  David  Downs,  to  the 
rescue."  Ruskin  hoped  that  the  land  might  be  made 
available  for  raising  fruit  trees,  and  for  the  cultiva- 
tion, under  glass,  of  rare  European  plants.  But  the 
climate  was  inhospitable,  and  so  finally  the  ground 
was  "brought  unto  heart"  to  furnish  strawberries, 
currants,  and  gooseberries  to  the  Sheffield  markets 
"at  a  price  both  moderate  and  fixed."  The  master 
soon  lost  interest  in  these  waste  Derbyshire  acres, 
however,  and  they  were  subsequently  let  to  a 
tenant.^ 

Although  these  agricultural  schemes  were  of  all  his 
experiments  in  social  reconstruction  nearest  the 
Master's  heart,  he  found  that  he  could  not  escape 
failure,  unsupported  and  alone.  He  confessed  his 
incapacity  to  manage  the  intricate  affairs  of  business, 

^  Ruskin  purchased  a  small  parcel  of  land  ("two  acres  and  a  few  odd 
yards,"  he  said;  "about  three-quarters  of  an  acre,"  said  Cook)  at  Clough- 
ton,  near  Scarborough,  for  the  use  of  a  member  of  the  Guild,  Mr.  John 
Guy.  Ruskin  looked  to  this  "brave  and  gentile  compani9n"  to  show  what 
could  be  done  in  "practical  and  patient  country  economy."  But  Mr. 
Guy  withdrew  after  five  years'  stay,  and  the  property  was  rented  to 
another  tenant,  who  was  occupying  it  in  1907.  "Of  other  property," 
says  Cook,  "the  Guild  holds  some  investments,  now  (1907)  bringing  in 
about  £75  per  annum." 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  281 

just  as  he  was  in  the  "midst  of  the  twelfth  century 
divinity  of  the  mosaics  of  St.  Mark's,"  or  some  other 
equally  rapturous  investigation  in  the  field  of  art  or 
nature;  and  he  could  find  no  one  to  assume  leadership 
in  his  place.  But  his  own  special  aptitudes  found  at 
last  a  proper  expression  in  the  museum  of  St.  George 
at  Sheffield,  an  enterprise  in  the  best  sense  successful. 
One  of  Ruskin's  former  students  at  the  Working 
Men's  College,  Mr.  Henry  Swan,  had  invited  him  to 
meet  a  company  of  workmen  at  Walkley,  a  mile  or  so 
from  Sheffield.  As  a  result  of  this  visit,  he  decided  in 
1875  to  establish  there  the  first  museum  of  St.  George, 
and  to  appoint  Mr.  Swan  as  curator.  The  site 
selected  was  the  top  of  a  hill  "in  the  midst  of  green 
fields,"  commanding  an  extensive  view  over  the 
surrounding  country,  including  the  valley  of  the  Don 
and  the  woods  of  Wharncliffe  Crags.  The  building 
was  a  small  stone  cottage,  which  had  to  accommodate 
both  the  specimens  and  the  curator.  To  this  modest 
shrine  of  the  muses  lovers  of  beauty  came  in  numbers 
and  from  distant  lands  for  many  years.  Finally  the 
collection  became  too  large  for  the  Walkley  cottage, 
and  a  new  location  had  to  be  found.  For  some  years 
Ruskin  cherished  the  hope  of  building  a  marble 
museum,  according  to  his  own  ideas,  on  the  St. 
George  land  in  Worcestershire,  but  the  dream  had  to 
remain  unrealized  for  lack  of  funds.  In  1889  he 
accepted  the  offer  of  the  Sheffield  Corporation  of  an 
estate  of  forty  acres  known  as  Meersbrook  Park, 
where  the  museum  might  find  a  permanent  home. 
The  Corporation  agreed  to  furnish  the  land,  the 
house,  and  the  maintenance,  while  the  Guild  loaned 


282  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

its  treasures  for  a  period  of  years,  which  would  no 
doubt  be  extended  indefinitely. 

Upon  this  foundation  the  Ruskin  Museum,  as  it 
came  to  be  called,  has  had  a  notable  record,  both  as  a 
center  for  visitors  and  for  students.  It  became  at 
once  the  concrete  expression  for  Ruskin  of  what  art 
might  do  for  the  people.  It  was  conceived  as  a  local 
Museum,  intended  especially  for  the  "laboring 
multitude,"  who,  in  times  to  come  "when  none  but 
useful  work  is  done  and  when  all  classes  are  com- 
pelled to  share  in  it,"  will  devote  their  leisure  hours  no 
more  to  the  alehouse,  but  "  to  the  contemplation  and 
study  of  the  works  of  God,  and  the  learning  that 
complete  code  of  natural  history  which,  beginning 
with  the  life  and  death  of  the  Hyssop  on  the  wall, 
rises  to  the  knowledge  of  the  life  and  death  of  the 
recorded  generations  of  mankind,  and  of  the  visible 
starry  Dynasties  of  Heaven."  ^  It  was  thus  a  place 
for  re-creative  study,  not  for  idle  amusement.  And  it 
embodied  Ruskin's  ideal  of  what  such  a  place  should 
be, — small,  accessible,  containing  "nothing  crowded, 
nothing  unnecessary,  nothing  puzzling,"  but  only 
what  was  good  and  beautiful  of  its  kind  and  that 
fully  explained.  With  characteristic  energy  and  en- 
thusiasm, the  Master  of  St.  George  devoted  much 
time,  down  to  the  end  of  his  working  days,  collecting 
and  arranging  materials  for  the  museum.  Illuminated 
manuscripts,  minerals,  precious  stones,  coins,  casts, 
drawings  he  gave  liberally  from  his  own  treasures  or 
purchased  with  funds  of  the  Guild.  He  engaged  a 
company  of  young  artists  to  make  photographs  or 
^  Works,  XXWll.^Si. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  283 

copies  of  French  and  Italian  art  before  the  ravages  of 
time  or  the  hand  of  the  restorer  had  done  their  irrep- 
arable damage.  Not  until  his  shattered  health 
compelled  him  to  put  aside  every  task  did  he  pause  in 
his  efforts  to  realize  his  ideal.  "Every  house  of  the 
Muses,"  he  said,  "is  an  Interpreter's  by  the  wayside, 
or  rather,  a  place  of  oracle  and  interpretation  in  one. 
And  the  right  function  of  every  museum,  to  simple 
persons,  is  the  manifestation  to  them  of  what  is  lovely 
in  the  life  of  Nature,  and  heroic  in  the  life  of 
Man." 

With  the  museum  the  work  of  St.  George  culmi- 
nated but  did  not  end.  Its  history  would  not  be  com- 
plete without  at  least  a  brief  mention  of  two  or  three 
industrial  experiments,  all  of  them  visible,  though 
feeble,  realizations  of  Ruskin's  hopes  of  a  new  social 
order.  He  had  said  in  Fors  Clavtgera  that  in  St. 
George's  Society  the  girls  were  to  learn  "to  spin, 
weave,  and  sew,  and  at  the  proper  age  to  cook  all 
ordinary  food  exquisitely."  He  had  expressed  more 
than  once  the  craftsman's  interest  in  needlework  and 
in  all  the  art  of  creating  fabrics; — "the  true  nature  of 
thread  and  needle,  the  structure  first  of  wool  and 
cotton,  of  fur  and  hair  and  down,  hemp,  flax,  and 
silk.  .  .  .  The  phase  of  its  dyeing.  What  azures  and 
emeralds  and  Tyrian  scarlets  can  be  got  into  fibres  of 
thread!  Then  the  phase  of  its  spinning.  The  mys- 
tery of  that  divine  spiral,  from  finest  to  firmest,  which 
renders  lace  possible  at  Valenciennes; — anchorage 
possible,  after  Trafalgar.  Then  the  mystery  of  weav- 
ing. The  eternal  harmony  of  warp  and  woof;  of  all 
manner  of  knotting,  knitting,  and  reticulation.  .  .  . 


284  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

And,  finally,  the  accomplished  phase  of  needlework."  * 
Undoubtedly  Ruskin  would  have  been  happy  could 
he  have  enlisted  the  co-operation  of  women  over  the 
countrysides  in  a  revival  of  domestic  arts, — women 
who  should  "secure  the  delivery  on  demand,"  he  said, 
"for  one  price,  over  at  least  some  one  counter  in 
the  nearest  country  town,  of  entirely  good  fabric  of 
linen,  woollen,  and  silk;  and  consider  that  task,  for  the 
present,  their  first  duty  to  Heaven  and  Earth.  ...  I 
believe  myself  that  they  will  find  the  only  way  is  the 
slow,  but  simple  and  sure  one,  of  teaching  any  girls 
they  have  influence  or  authority  over,  to  spin  and 
weave;  and  appointing  an  honest  and  religious 
woman  for  their  merchant."  ^ 

Through  the  co-operation  of  two  companions  of  St. 
George  he  found  opportunity  to  carry  out  this 
interest  in  the  domestic  crafts.  In  1876  Mr.  Rydings 
of  Laxey,  Isle  of  Man,  wrote  to  Ruskin  that  wool- 
spinning  was  still  a  healthy  industry  among  the 
women  there,  although  remuneration  was  so  small 
that  the  aged  and  infirm  were  frequently  obliged  to 
leave  their  spinning-wheels  for  work  in  the  mills. 
Ruskin's  sympathy  was  at  once  aroused  and,  with 
the  help  of  Mr.  Rydings,  he  determined  to  revive 
spinning  and  weaving  at  Laxey.  Accordingly  a 
water  mill  was  erected  "for  the  manufacture  of  the 
honest  thread  into  honest  cloth — dyed  indelibly." 
Farmers  brought  their  wool  to  the  mill  and  were  paid 
in  finished  cloth  or  yarn  for  home  knitting.  Much 
cloth,  besides,  was  made  for  the  outside  market. 
Ruskin  never  saw  the  mill.  He  loaned  the  Guild's 
^  Works,  XXIX,  sio.  ^Ihid.,  XXIX,  118. 


THE  SWORD  OF  ST.  GEORGE  285 

money  to  Mr.  Rydings  for  support  of  the  industry, 
which  he  hoped  to  see  continued  as  it  began.  In  the 
course  of  time,  however,  it  was  found  impossible  to 
keep  up  the  enterprise  on  the  basis  of  hand-spinning 
and  hand-weaving;  and  so  it  was  given  over  to  the 
manufacture  of  woollen  cloths.  The  debt  having 
now  been  paid,  the  Guild  of  St.  George  had  no  further 
connection  with  the  business,  and  "Laxey  homespun" 
became  a  thing  of  the  past. 

Meantime,  through  the  enthusiasm  of  another 
disciple  and  companion  of  St.  George,  Ruskin  was  to 
realize  his  "vision  of  thread  and  needlework."  It 
came  through  the  Langdale  linen  industry,  revived  by 
Mr.  Albert  Fleming  among  the  cottagers  of  the  West- 
moreland hills  around  Coniston.  The  romantic  story 
is  best  told  in  Mr.  Fleming's  own  words,  written  in 
1890:  "Scattered  about  on  the  fell  side  were  many  old 
women,  too  blind  to  sew  and  too  old  for  hand  work, 
but  able  to  sit  by  the  fireside  and  spin,  if  any  one 
would  show  them  how,  and  buy  their  yarn.  ...  I 
got  myself  taught  spinning,  and  then  set  to  work  to 
teach  others.  I  tried  my  experiment  here,  in  the 
Langdale  Valley,  in  Westmoreland,  half-way  between 
Mr.  Ruskin's  home  at  Coniston  and  Wordsworth's 
at  Rydal.  Sixty  years  ago  every  cottage  here  had  its 
wheel,  and  every  larger  village  its  weaver.  .  ."  After 
much  difficulty  wheels  were  made,  flax  imported  from 
Ireland,  and  a  cottage  school  of  spinning  begun.  .  .  . 
"When  a  woman  could  spin  a  good  thread  I  let  her 
take  a  wheel  home,  and  gave  her  the  flax,  buying  it 
back  from  her  when  spun,  at  the  rate  of  2s.  6d.  per 
pound  of  thread.  .  .  .    Next  came  the  weaving.    In  a 


286  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

cellar  of  Kendal  we  discovered  a  loom;  it  was  in 
twenty  pieces,  and  when  we  got  it  home  not  all  the 
collective  wisdom  of  the  village  knew  how  to  set  it  up. 
Luckily  we  had  a  photograph  of  Giotto's  Campanile, 
and  by  the  help  of  that  the  various  parts  were  rightly 
put  together.  We  then  secured  an  old  weaver,  and 
one  bright  Easter  morning  saw  our  first  piece  of  linen 
woven — the  first  purely  hand-spun  and  hand-woven 
linen  produced  in  all  broad  England  in  our  genera- 
tion. .  .  .  The  next  process  was  to  bleach  it.  .  .  . 
As  Giotto  fixed  our  loom  for  us.  Homer  taught  us  the 
true  principle  of  bleaching.  .  .  .  Sun,  air,  and  dew 
were  our  only  chemicals."  ^  Mr.  Fleming  found  that 
people  bought  the  product  of  his  loom,  and  so  the 
work  prospered.  "It  has  spread  in  many  directions," 
said  Cook  in  1907,  "  and  there  are  branches  in  London 
and  in  many  parts  of  the  country;  but  the  original 
industry  still  flourishes"  now  at  Coniston.^ 

So  ends  the  story  of  the  activities  of  St.  George's 
Guild.  It  is  generally  said  that  nothing  came  of  them, 
that  they  were  the  dream.s  of  a  medieval  dreamer, 
"born  out  of  due  time,"  who  longed  to  revive  a  thir- 

»  Works,  XXX,  328-330. 

2  Ibid ,  XXX,  intro.,  XXXVII.  Another  industry  that  owed  its  re- 
organization to  the  inspiration  of  Ruskin  was  the  woollen  firm  of  George 
Thomson  &  Co.  at  Huddersfield.  Mr.  Thomson  was  a  disciple  of  Ruskin, 
was  one  of  the  trustees  of  St.  George,  and  in  191 1  was  its  Master.  The 
new  plan  rested  upon  co-partnership.  It  provided  "a  sick  pay  and  pen- 
sion fund";  and  adopted  the  eight-hour  day,  with  fixed  wages  for  all. 
Half  of  the  net  profits  went  to  the  workers,  half  to  the  consumers.  Grad- 
ually the  workers  were  to  buy  the  shares  of  the  capital  and  own  the  con- 
cern. In  1886  Ruskin  wrote  to  Mr.  Thomson  of  the  experiment  as  "  the 
momentous  and  absolutely  foundational  step  taken  by  you  in  all  that  is 
just  and  wise,  in  the  establishment  of  these  relations  with  your  work- 
men."    {Works,  XXX,  333.) 


THE  SWORD  OF  Sr.  GEORGE  2R7 

teenth-century  society  a  little  after  the  pattern  of  the 
fellowship  of  St.  Francis;  or,  worse  still,  that  they 
were  the  grotesque  efforts  of  a  modern  Don  Quixote, 
rushing  madly  at  imaginary  evils  and  making  himself 
ridiculous  before  the  world.  Even  Carlyle  at  first 
thought  the  whole  thing  a  joke.  It  is  true  that  Rus- 
kin's  fancy  at  times  played  fast  and  loose  with  the 
idea  of  a  new  society,  with  the  result  that  his  sober 
plans,  as  he  confessed,  were  too  much  colored  with 
romance.  He  thought  of  a  system  that  should  be 
fit  "for  wide  European  work,"  and  under  the  name 
of  Monte  Rosa  it  was  to  "number  its  members 
ultimately  by  myriads."  He  wrote  out  a  fantastic 
scheme  of  government,  a  kind  of  feudal  hierarchy 
beginning  with  the  master,  as  absolute  lord,  including 
various  ranks  of  companions,  and  ending  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  scale  with  the  tenant  farmers  and  hired 
workers.  And  for  this  society,  each  class  with  its 
distinguishing  costume,  he  was  to  devise  a  medieval 
Florentine  coinage!  But  all  this  was  rather  the 
whimsical  amusement  of  Ruskin  than  his  serious 
purpose.  Medievalist  he  was  and  a  disciple  of  St. 
Francis,  but  he  never  seriously  thought  of  setting  up 
pure  medievalism  in  the  nineteenth  century,  as  the 
actual  experiments  of  St.  George  abundantly  showed. 
He  disclaimed  any  idea  of  founding  a  colony,  or 
separate  society,  after  a  medieval  or  communistic 
pattern.  There  was  nothing  new  in  the  laws  of  St. 
George,  he  protested,  "not  a  single  object  which  had 
not  been  aimed  at  by  good  men  since  the  world 
began."  Undoubtedly  what  he  had  most  at  heart  in 
all  his  thinking  about  the  Guild  was  a  fellowship  of 


288  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

workers  sworn  to  live  out  the  gospel  of  work  as  It  had 
been  preached  by  Carlyle  and  himself,  and  was  even 
then  being  preached  by  William  Morris.  He  wanted 
to  see  a  company  of  people  pledged  to  a  certain  indi- 
vidual and  social  conduct  in  the  places  where  they 
already  were;  pledged  to  honesty;  pledged  to  earn 
their  living  with  their  own  hands  and  heads;  and 
pledged  to  use  their  leisure  in  the  cultivation  of  their 
souls.  "You  are  to  work,"  he  said,  "so  far  as  circum- 
stances admit  of  your  doing  so,  with  your  own  hands 
in  the  production  of  substantial  means  of  life — food, 
clothes,  house,  or  fire.  .  .  .  What  you  have  done  in 
fishing,  fowling,  digging,  sowing,  watering,  reaping, 
milling,  shepherding,  shearing,  spinning,  weaving, 
building,  carpentering,  slating,  coal-carrying,  cooking, 
coster-mongering,  and  the  like, — that  is  St.  George's 
work^  and  means  of  power.  .  .  .  And  the  main 
message  St.  George  brings  to  you  is  t\i3.t  you  will  not 
be  degraded  by  this  work  nor  saddened  by  it."^ 
Surely  a  dream  of  restoring  honesty  and  health  and 
happiness  to  our  modern  world  of  workers  is  not 
after  all  such  a  "frantic"  dream! 

1  Works,  XXIX,  472. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
HER.^DS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER 

"There  must  be  a  new  world,  if  there  is  to  be  any  world 
at  all.  ...  In  the  course  of  long  strenuous  centuries, 
I  can  see  the  State  become  what  it  is  actually  bound  to 
be,  the  keystone  of  a  most  real  'Organization  of  Labor,' — 
and  on  this  Earth  a  world  of  some  veracity,  and  some 
heroism,  once  more  worth  living  in!" — Carlyh. 

"Whatever  our  station  in  life  may  be,  at  this  crisis, 
those  of  us  who  mean  to  fulfil  our  duty  ought  first  to  live  on 
as  little  as  we  can;  and,  secondly,  to  do  all  the  wholesome 
work  for  it  we  can,  and  to  spend  all  we  can  spare  in  doing 
all  the  sure  good  we  can.  And  sure  good  is,  first  in  feeding 
people,  then  in  dressing  people,  then  in  lodging  people,  and 
lastly  in  rightly  pleasing  people,  with  arts,  or  sciences,  or 
any  other  subject  of  thought." — Ruskin. 

It  is  one  of  the  glories  of  English  literature  that 
it  has  remained  close  to  the  life  of  the  English 
people.  Men  of  letters  in  every  age  of  England's 
history  have  taken  the  substance  of  their  art,  as  well 
as  its  inspiration,  directly  from  the  traditions,  the 
struggles,  the  hopes  and  fears  of  the  men  and  women 
who  have  made  up  its  national  life,  whether  on  its 
political,  economic,  social,  or  religious  side.  Dilet- 
tanti and  critics  from  time  to  time  have  found  fault 
with  a  literary  art  that  was  (as  they  thought)  every- 
thing but  literary,  that  sometimes  espoused  ethics 
and  eschewed  aesthetics,  and  that  often  seemed  to 
care  at  least  as  much  for  the  welfare  of  society  as  for 
its   entertainment.      But   the   creators  of  art  have 

289 


290  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

thought  differently.  Poets  and  prosemen  alike,  to  a 
degree  hardly  paralleled  in  any  other  country  of 
modern  times,  have  been  unable  or  unwilling  to 
alienate  their  art  from  the  social  life  about  them;  or 
where  their  more  purely  imaginative  interests  have 
conflicted  with  the  duties  of  the  hour  they  have  been 
ready,  like  Milton,  to  give  their  pen  to  the  services  of 
the  state,  even  though  the  voice  of  the  muse  should 
for  the  while  be  silenced.  No  age  of  English  literature 
is  more  conspicuous  in  this  respect  than  the  Victorian, 
for  the  very  good  reason,  no  doubt,  that  in  this  age 
more  than  in  any  other,  the  problems  of  society 
became  suddenly  complex  and  urgent,  threatening 
disturbances,  both  material  and  spiritual,  of  a  kind 
undreamed  of  by  generations  that  had  gone  before. 
Consequently  the  greater  writers  of  this  period,  with 
few  exceptions,  turned  their  attention  to  the  "condi- 
tion of  England  question,"  not  with  the  purpose  of 
exciting  the  curiosity  of  a  sophisticated  public  with 
unusual,  out-of-the-way  matters,  nor  with  the  latter- 
day  notion  of  exploiting  a  segment  of  society  in  the 
interest  of  imaginative  literature.  The  great  Victo- 
rians turned  to  the  world  around  them,  because, 
seeing  that  it  was  a  world  disturbed  to  its  center  by 
new  and  ominous  social  phenomena,  they  saw  also 
that  unless  something  were  done  to  awaken  the  public 
heart  and  mind  to  a  sense  of  the  vast  evils  and  the 
vast  injustice  in  the  changed  industrial  order,  nothing 
might  save  England  from  a  catastrophic  disaster 
such  as  an  earlier  generation  had  witnessed  across  the 
Channel.  And  so  literature  became  a  handmaid  of 
reform.     The   social   ideals  of  a  great   epoch   were 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       291 

touched,  and,  to  a  degree  beyond  any  man's  comput- 
ing, were  transformed  by  the  magic  of  art.  Let  any 
one  who  doubts  the  truth  of  this  assertion,  contrast 
the  public  conscience  of  England  during  the  last 
twenty  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  with  the 
public  conscience  during  the  period  stretching  for 
fifty  years  back  of  1880;  and  then  let  him  consider 
the  content  as  well  as  the  immense  vogue  and  force 
of  English  letters  during  the  same  period,  and  he  will 
be  a  dull  inquirer  if  he  be  not  convinced  that  for  the 
higher  standards  of  social  justice  which  the  people  of 
the  later  decades  possessed  over  those  of  the  earlier 
period  they  owed  a  large  debt  to  the  Victorian  writers 
who  had  already  passed  from  the  stage,  or  whose 
work  was  practically  done.  The  novels  of  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  and  George  Eliot,  of  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
Disraeli,  Kingsley,  and  Charles  Reade,  the  poetry  of 
Tennyson,  the  essays  of  Arnold,  each  and  all  in  their 
various  ways,  told  powerfully  in  the  direction  of  fuller 
knowledge  of  social  abuses  or  problems,  and  of  more 
humane  ideals  in  the  work  of  suppression  or  solution. 
Of  all  the  forces  in  Victorian  letters  that  affected  the 
great  currents  of  industrial  and  social  life,  however, 
the  writings  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  were  probably  the 
most  potent  in  their  own  time  and  most  influential 
upon  leaders  who  came  after  them. 

Their  challenge  and  their  program  have  been 
reviewed  in  detail  in  the  preceding  chapters,  with 
some  reference  to  the  circumstances  out  of  which 
their  message  arose.  It  will  be  necessary  in  con- 
clusion to  sketch  the  broader  outlines  only  of  their 
work,  for  the  sake  of  comparison  and  contrast,  and  as 


292  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

a  background  against  which  to  set  down  some  aspects 
of  their  influence  upon  their  time  and  ours.  The 
comparisons  are  more  numerous,  if  not  more  striking, 
than  the  contrasts.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  in  this 
connection  that  Ruskin,  when  referring  to  his  social 
philosophy,  always  regarded  himself  as  the  pupil  and 
disciple  of  Carlyle.  He  spoke  the  truth  when  in  1880 
he  wrote  to  a  correspondent  of  himself  and  his  master 
as  follows:  "We  feel  so  much  alike,  that  you  may 
often  mistake  one  for  the  other  now."  Their  attacks 
upon  their  time  were  indeed  in  many  essentials 
identical.  Both  looked  upon  the  era  in  which  they 
I  lived  as  one  of  transition  from  an  older  settled 
'  feudalistic  order  to  one  whose  ultimate  form  no  man 
could  predict,  but  which  all  the  signs  of  the  times 
seemed  to  declare  was  likely  to  be  in  some  sense 
'democratic.  To  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  looking  out 
upon  a  world  in  which  the  masses  were  almost  to  a 
man  unenlightened,  democracy  was  synonymous  with 
anarchy  and  must  be  put  down;  for  so  they  inter- 
preted the  popular  movements  around  them  in  the 
light  of  the  revolutions  of  1789, 1830,  1848,  and  1871. 
But  the  threatened  upheaval  of  roaring  Demos  from 
below  nevertheless  meant  that  something  was  rotten 
in  the  state  of  affairs  and  that  steps  must  be  taken, 
and  taken  quickly,  to  remove  the  cause  of  disease  in 
the  body  politic.  And  so  they  attacked  the  extrava- 
gance, the  indifference,  the  cupidity  of  the  rich, — the 
Mammon  worshipers  and  all  their  breed,  who 
clothed  themselves  in  purple  and  fine  linen  and  doffed 
the  world  aside.  They  attacked  the  notion  that 
human  labor  was  a  commodity  and  that  workmen 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       293 

were  only  so  many  "hands."  They  held  up  before 
their  contemporaries  the  misery  and  ignorance  of  the 
poor,  and  all  the  evils  of  an  industrial  system  erected 
upon  the  foundations  of  laissez-faire.  Radical  and 
conservative  in  mingled  strains,  at  once  communistic 
and  Tory,  in  economics  reddest  of  the  red,  in  politics 
often  more  reactionary  than  the  House  of  Lords, 
they  yet  broke  into  the  smug  and  detached  circles  of 
Victorian  society  as  with  the  force  of  thunderbolts, 
clearing  the  air  for  wiser  thinking  and  healthier 
living. 

And  into  this  clearer  atmosphere  they  projected 
proposals  of  reform  in  most  cases  alike  in  principle 
and,  underneath  all  the  impetuous  force  of  the  chal- 
lenge, supported  by  a  spirit  essentially  and  typically 
British  in  its  conservatism;  for  they  knew  that 
thoroughgoing  social  reconstruction  could  be  effected, 
if  at  all,  only  gradually,  a  little  to-day,  a  little  to- 
morrow, and  yet  more  in  the  years  to  come.  Carlyle 
would  have  entirely  agreed  with  Ruskin,  who  said 
that  "all  useful  change  must  be  slow  and  by  progres- 
sive and  visibly  secure  stages.  The  evils  of  centuries > 
cannot  be  defied  and  conquered  in  a  day."  ^  All  the 
more  were  they  conservative,  because  they  believed 
that  reform  to  be  effectual  must  reach  down  to  men 
and  not  be  content  with  legislative  adjustments. 
And  so  we  hear,  from  Sartor  Resartus  to  Fors  Clavi- 
gera^  a  reiterated  declaration  of  the  rights  and  digni- 
ties and  possibilities  of  the  soul  of  man  irrespective  of 
station  in  life,  better  than  all  machinery,  bigger  than 
all  theories,  richer  than  all  the  wealth  of  the  British 

1  Works,  XXIX,  548. 


294  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

Isles.    The  whole  message  of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  was 
in  effect  a  challenge, — a  challenge  to  the  leaders  of 
their  time  to  realize  that  infinitely  the  most  impor- 
i  tant  element  in  industry  was  the  human  factor,  and 
/  that  what  the  worker  wanted  more  than  all  else  was 
I  justice  and  freedom,  the  indefeasible  rights  of  his 
spiritual  nature.    This  was  first  and  fundamental,  but 
always  with  the  implication  of  an  unchanging  status 
in  the  workers  as  a  class.    What  the  workers  needed 
next  was  guidance  rather  than  political  power.    In  a 
time  when  the  world  was  "becoming  dismantled" 
I  and' when  the  destinies  were  spinning  new  "organic 
i  filaments,"   Carlyle  and  Ruskin   looked  to  an   aris- 
\  tocracy  for  leadership,  an  aristocracy  of  talents  to  be 
regenerated  under  pressure  of  the  immense  responsi- 
jbilities  of  the  new  era.     They  looked  to  the  aristoi 
"to  express  through  the  state, — that  is  to  say,  through 
constitutional   government, — a   control    over   social 
forces   far  more  complete   than  most  people   then 
dreamed  of,  and  to  be  exercised  in  accordance  with 
the  findings  of  a  wide   investigation  as  to  the  condi- 
tions and  needs  of  the  people.     A  wise  and  just  cen- 
."tralized  authority  would  accomplish  many   things. 
It  would  throw  out  the  policy  of  laissez-Jaire^  root 
and   branch.      It   would   organize   labor,   gradually 
admitting  it  to  some  form  of  partnership  with  indus- 
try.   It  would  extend  education  to  the  masses.    And 
in  this  guidance  of  labor  to  a  better  organization  both 
Carlyle  and  Ruskin  believed  that  leaders  would  find 
suggestions  and  inspiration  from  medieval  times;  for 
lin  those  days  there  were  association  and  freedom  in 
work,  and  the  various  classes  in  the  social  order  were 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       295 

held  together  not  by  cash-nexus  alone,  but  by  ties  of 
human  fellowship. 

Their  combined  program  of  reform  was  thus  social- 
istic rather  than  socialist.  Its  worth  and  power  are 
obvious,  and  of  these  qualities  we  shall  say  more 
presently.  But  its  weakness  is  no  less  obvious.  It 
was  at  once  too  individualistlcand,  especially  in  the 
case  of  Ruskin,  too  paternalistic.  Both  Carlyle  and 
Ruskin  regarded  the  masses  too  much  as  individual 
units  when  it  came  to  moral  reform,  and  they  re- 
garded the  leaders  too  much  as  an  independent  con- 
trolling class  when  it  came  to  political  reform.  This 
is  a  criticism  which  suggests  the  whole  force  of 
Mazzini's  vigorous  attack  upon  Carlyle  (an  attack 
that  might  with  equal  justice  have  been  made  upon 
Ruskin),  to  the  effect  that  Carlyle  wholly  overlooked 
the  true  conception  of  modern  democracy  as  a  move- 
ment in  which  "the  collective  thought  was  seeking  to 
supplant  the  individual  thought  in  the  social  organ- 
ism." 1  To  Carlyle  as  to  Ruskin  the  sins  of  society 
were  fundamentally  the  sins  of  individual  men  and 
women  far  more  than  they  were  the  evil  fruits  of  a 
vicious  system.  And  on  the  political  side,  they  could 
not  see,  as  did  John  Stuart  Mill,  that  political  free- 
dom might  educate  the  masses  for  increased  respon- 
sibility and  that  the  cure  for  democracy  might  be 
more  democracy. 

It  is  easier  from  the  vantage  point  of  our  time, 
however,    to   find    fault   with    the  ultra-aristocratic 

^  The  Writings  of  Thomas  Carlyle,  in  Mazzini's  Essays,  21.  Cf.  "Mr. 
Carlyle  comprehends  only  the  individual;  the  true  sense  of  the  unity  of 
the  human  race  escapes  him.  He  sympathizes  with  all  men,  but  it  is  with 
the  separate  life  of  each,  and  not  with  their  collective  life."  {ibid.,  124.) 


296  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

politics  of  these  great  Victorians  than  it  would  have 
been  in  theirs,  sixty  and  seventy  years  ago,  when 
individualism  was  still  a  rampant  creed,  and  when 
any  form  of  collectivism  as  a  political  force  was 
practically  unheard  of.  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  were  by 
no  means  alone  in  their  fear  of  what  might  happen  if 
political  power  should  suddenly  be  transferred  to  the 
masses.  Elections  were  notoriously  corrupt.  Bri- 
bery was  open  and  unabashed.  The  populace  was 
densely  ignorant,  and  was  ever  and  anon  boiling  with 
discontent  and  threatening  to  explode.  Irresponsible 
crowds,  many  of  them  hardly  more  than  hoodlums, 
were  likely  to  be  set  off  by  popular  firebrands  like 
the  Chartist,  Feargus  O'Connor,  who  talked  wildly 
about  "physical  force  without  cease,"  and  who  in  a 
speech  at  Manchester  in  1838  said:  "If  peace  giveth 
not  law,  I  am  for  war  to  the  knife."  ^  General  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  who  saw  the  starved  and  desperate 
poor  in  the  manufacturing  towns  of  Lancashire  in 
1839,  declared  that  it  looked  to  him  as  if  "the  falling 
of  an  Empire  were  beginning."^  Popular  uprisings  in 
Europe  in  1848  were  put  down  only  by  strong  mili- 
tary power,  sometimes  with  terrible  cost  of  life,  as  in 
the  street  fighting  in  Paris,  June  23-26.  Events  were 
so  portentous  in  those  years  that  even  so  rationalistic 
an  observer  as  John  Stuart  Mill,  reflecting  upon  the 
questions  which  the  progress  of  democracy  was 
pressing  forward,  remarked  in  a  letter  (1852)  to  a 
friend:  "It  is  to  be  decided  whether  Europe  shall 

^  Carlyle  once  told  Lecky,  the  historian,  that  two  great  curses  seemed  to 
him  to  be  eating  away  the  heart  and  worth  of  the  English  people, — drink 
and  "stump  oratory."  (Lecky,  Historical  and  Political  Essays,  1 12.) 

2  Hovell,  The  Chartist  Movement,  136. 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       297 

enter  peacefully  and  prosperously  into  a  better  order 
of  things,  or  whether  the  new  ideas  will  be  inaugu- 
rated by  a  century  of  war  and  violence  like  that  which 
followed  the  Reformation  of  Luther."  '  Was  it  safe  to 
place  the  ballot  into  the  hands  of  ignorant  and  pro- 
pertyless  men,  capable  of  mob  violence?  Macaulay, 
Lord  John  Russell,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  did  not  think 
so,  for  in  the  debate  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the 
famous  Chartist  petition  of  1842,  they  led  in  an 
attack  upon  universal  manhood  suffrage  and  carried 
the  day  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  Opposition  of 
course  subsided  with  the  years,  but  it  was  very  much 
alive  even  after  the  Reform  Act  of  1867,  as  is  shown 
in  the  political  writings  of  Herbert  Spencer,  Maine, 
Fitzjames  Stephen,  and  Bagehot.^  No  man  was 
more  liberal  in  his  political  thought  than  Mill  and  yet 
to  the  end  of  his  days  Mill  feared  the  ignorance  and 
inferiority  of  the  working  classes;  and  to  check  their 

'  Letters  oj  John  Stuart  Mill,  I,  170.  Cf.  Rose,  The  Rise  of  Democracy, 
Ch.  IX.  e.  g. — "When  Louis  Philippe,  King  of  the  French,  escaped  out  of 
Paris  in  a  cab;  when  Metternich,  after  controUing  the  destines  of  Central 
and  Southern  Europe,  was  fain  to  flee  from  Vienna  in  a  washerwoman's 
cart;  when  Italian  Dukes  and  German  translucencies  hastily  granted 
democratic  constitutions,  to  petition  for  which  had  recently  been  a  sure 
passport  to  the  dungeon,  could  not  a  monster  demonstration  of  the  men 
of  London  force  the  Charter  on  a  trembling  and  penitent  Parliament?" 
(137).  Cf.  also,  Mazzini,  Europe:  Its  Condition  (1862),  e.  g. — "For  sixty 
years  Europe  has  been  convulsed  by  a  series  of  political  struggles  which 
have  assumed  all  aspects  by  turns;  which  have  raised  every  conceivable 
flag,  from  that  of  pure  despotism  to  that  of  anarchy;  from  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  bourgeoise  in  France  and  elsewhere  as  the  dominant  caste,  to 
the  jacqueries  of  the  peasants  of  Gallicia.  Thirty  revolutions  have  taken 
place.  Two  or  three  royal  dynasties  have  been  engulfed  in  the  abyss  of 
popular  fury,"  etc.     {Essays,  265.) 

*  In  his  introduction  to  the  second  edition  (1872)  to  his  English  Consti- 
tution (1867),  Ba^'chot  shows  throughout  a  fear  of  political  power  in  the 
hands  of  w(  rkinumen.  He  feared  subservience  to  them  on  the  part  of 
politicians,  and  he  feared   combinations  among  themselves  as  a  class 


298  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

power  he  favored  plurality  of  votes  for  the  better 
qualified  citizens,  the  kind  of  thing  (at  least  in  prin- 
ciple) which  Ruskin  endorsed  and  which  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  Carlyle  also  would  not  have 
supported  could  he  have  once  seen  its  effective 
establishment.^  It  should  be  understood,  moreover, 
in  a  consideration  of  the  suffrage  situation  in  those 
days,  that  among  the  ultra-radical  thinkers  there  was 
still  a  good  deal  of  equalitarian  philosophy  in  the  air, 
a  philosophy  that  went  back  to  Bentham  and  Adam 
Smith  and  beyond  them  to  the  French  Revolution 
and  Rousseau,  saying  that  men  were  by  nature  equal 
in  capacity  and  different  only  because  their  environ- 
ment had  differed.  To  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  such 
thinking  gave  the  lie  to  the  plainest  facts  of  life,  and 
was  full  of  peril  to  the  state.  Something  of  the  fierce 
scorn  which  they  at  times  let  loose  upon  prison  re- 
formers and  sentimental  prophets  of  humanitarian- 
ism  must  therefore  be  attributed  to  their  fear  of  the 
spread  of  this  dangerous  heresy  concerning  equality. - 

against  the  other  classes, — "an  evil,"  he  says,  "of  the  first  magnitude. 
...  I  am  exceedingly  afraid  of  the  ignorant  multitudes  of  the  new 
constituencies." 

1  See  Raskin's  proposed  second  letter  (1852)  to  the  Times  on  election, 
Works,  XII,  600.    The  letters  were  suppressed  by  Ruskin's  father. 

'^  The  severest  criticism  that  can  be  directed  against  the  political  thought 
of  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  is  not  that  they  would  have  thrown  out  the  ballot, 
for  they  would  not;  nor  that  they  believed  in  despotism  rather  than  in 
constitutional  government  (a  travesty  of  their  creed).  It  is  that  they  had 
no  faith  that  the  responsibility  of  the  baHot  (with  education)  would  raise 
the  standard  of  life  among  the  masses.  They  would  first  raise  the  stand- 
ard of  life  and  then  bestow  the  ballot.  The  paradox  remains,  therefore, 
that  the  prophets  who  habitually  championed  the  cause  of  thi  workers 
and  who  eloquently  preached  the  gospel  of  the  worth  of  the  mdividual 
soul,  always  distrusted  the  capacity  of  the  masses  for  political  power. 
They  did  not  believe  that  their  contentment  depended  upon  their  voting. 

Admitting  the  paradox,  the  critics  of  Carlyle  (for  he  has  been  more 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       299 

Enough  has  been  said,  however,  to  indicate  their 
position    among    their    contemporaries   on    a   great 
political  question  of  the  day,  and  it  is  time  to  turn 
from    comparisons    to    certain    striking    contrasts. 
Ruskin  came  to  the  study  of  industry  and  society 
from  art,  and  from  art  he  brought  with  him  a  gospel 
of  work,  not  more    powerful    nor   more   sane    than 
Carlyle's,  but  richer  and  with  more  promise  in  it  for 
the  future.     Both  stood  for  self-expression  in  work, 
but  for  Carlyle  it  was  the  expression  of  duty,  of  grim 
fidelity  to  a  task,  a  task  generally  unpleasant  but 
needing  to  be  done,  and  done  without  whimpering. 
Carlyle  felt  that  toil  kept  men  out  of  sin,  and  that 
toil,  manfully  accomplished,  added  immensely  to  the 
nobility  of  a  man's  nature.    Ruskin  believed  all  this 
as  an  antidote  to  laziness  or  dissipation  and  as  a  way 
of  getting  the  rough  work  of  the  world  done.    But  he 
went  further,  at  least  for  wise  men  in  a  wisely  ordered 
society.    He  preached  the  gospel  of  joy  in  creative 
effort.    He  taught  that  it  was  right  work  only  that 
made   men   happy.     In   art,   the   symbol  of  man's 
highest  felicity  in  self-expression,  he  read  the  signifi- 
cance of  work  on  a  wider  scale.    A  man  must  find  in 
his  appointed  task  something  more  than  an  expres- 
sion of  duty;  he  must  find  in  it  an  outlet  for  his 

assailed  on  this  point  than  Ruskin)  are  not  justified  in  saying  that  he 
provides  no  machinery  for  the  discovery  of  his  hero-governor.  It  is  true 
that  he  disclaims  any  responsibility  for  inventmg  machmery,  and  that  he 
is  vague  and  general  as  to  methods  of  political  reform;  but  he  every^vhere 
assumes  that  the  established  ways  (ballot,  public  meetmgs.  representative 
assemblies)  will  be  used  by  those  who  have  the  capacity  to  use  them.  1  he 
able  men  will  be  placed  in  power,  and  kept  there,  by  those  who  can  recog- 
nize ability  when  they  see  it,  be  they  toilworn  craftsmen  or  titled  ansto- 


crats. 


300  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

creative  capacities,  his  loyalties  to  society,  his  crav- 
ings for  fellowship,  and  even  for  his  spirit  of  play. 
And  along  with  this  newer  gospel  of  work  Ruskin 
brought  from  art  his  hatred  of  the  ugliness  in  modern 
life.  Hence  he  preached  far  more  than  did  Carlyle 
(who  in  fact  only  touched  on  the  subject  here  and 
there)  against  the  dirt  and  noise  that  industrialism 
had  brought  in  its  train.  Accordingly,  one  of  his 
favorite  remedies  for  social  regeneration  was  increased 
beauty  in  our  daily  life,  in  our  cities,  and  in  our 
homes. 

For  the  reason  that  he  came  to  industry  by  the 
pathway  of  art,  Ruskin  had  a  truer  appreciation  than 
Carlyle  of  the  grinding  slavery  of  machine  labor. 
Mechanism  for  Carlyle  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  broad 
term  to  cover  all  the  manifestations  of  materialism  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  and  as  such  he  laid  upon  it 
titanian  blows,  such  as  the  hands  of  Ruskin  could  not 
deliver.  Mechanism  for  Ruskin  meant  division  of 
labor  and  a  worse  than  serfdom,  in  the  factory  sys- 
tem. It  meant  the  negation  of  his  whole  gospel  of 
joy  in  work.  Consequently  his  attack  upon  it,  while 
less  powerful  and  dramatic  than  Carlyle's,  was  far 
more  reasoned  and  carried  with  it  far  more  hope  for 
the  future.  Ruskin's  entire  social  program,  in  fact, 
although  nowhere  supported  by  so  impressive  a 
personality  as  Carlyle's,  was  far  more  detailed  and 
went  much  further  in  the  right  directions.  Carlyle 
never  pretended  to  write  political  economy  and  he 
suggested  specific  economic  remedies  hesitatingly. 
Ruskin  marched  straight  into  the  camp  of  the  enemy, 
striking  about  him,  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  and 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       301 

sometimes  making  a  sad  spectacle  of  himself.  Bur 
he  did  good  service, — most  of  all,  probably,  in  social- 
izing economics;  for  he  showed  that  man  cannot  be 
economically  considered  without  being  educationally, 
ethically,  and  even  religiously  considered  also.  He 
developed,  indeed,  much  further  than  did  Carlyle 
the  idea  of  a  man's  work  in  the  world  as  a  social 
service,  and  he  understood  better  than  his  master  the 
possibility  of  a  changed  attitude  in  the  social  con- 
sciousness towards  servile  labor,  towards  the  trades 
and  business  generally,  and  towards  the  pecuniary 
reward    for   work. 

If  now  in  conclusion  we  turn  to  a  brief  considera- 
tion of  the  influence  of  this  social  philosophy  of  Car- 
lyle and  Ruskin,  we  shall  find  reason  to  believe  that 
it  told  powerfully  upon  a  wide  circle  of  intellectual 
and  social  leaders  during  the  years  from  1835  ^°  1880. 
This  was  a  period  in  English  life  of  unrest,  criticism, 
and  transition.  As  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  wrote  in 
1848,  there  seemed  to  be 

"  Only  infinite  jumble  and  mess  and  dislocation." 

To  most  people,  particularly  to  the  working  classes, 
as  to  Dickens's  Stephen  Blackpool  in  Hard  Tunes 
(1854),  the  industrial  world  was  "a'  a  muddle."  Even 
at  the  end  of  the  period,  Matthew  Arnold,  most 
discerning  and  dispassionate  of  observers,  declared 
in  his  essay  Equality  (1878):  "We  are  trying  to  live 
on  with  a  social  organization  of  which  the  day  is 
over."  The  government  during  this  time  had  no  far- 
reaching  policy  of  social  reform.  Parliament,  under 
the  influence  of  liberal-utilitarian  policies,  was  a  good 


302  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

deal  less  actively  engaged  in  creating  new  agencies 
of  control  than  in  removing  old  disabilities  against 
Catholics,  Jews,  and  Dissenters,  and  old  restrictions, 
such  as  the  Corn  Laws,  the  Navigation  Laws,  and 
the  various  import  duties  that  were  hampering 
freedom  of  trade. ^  It  was  the  formative  period  for 
organized  labor,  marked  up  and  down  by  many  acute 
industrial  disturbances,  which  served,  however,  to 
warn  the  public  of  the  growing  strength  of  trade 
unionism. 2  Employers,  almost  to  a  man,  were  still 
militantly  individualistic,  declaring  that  the  admin- 
istration of  industry  belonged  to  them  and  that  they 
would  deal  with  the  workers  only  as  individuals.^ 
Karl  Marx  was  not  much  felt  as  a  force  in  the  English 
world  of  labor  before  1880.  The  Fabians  had  not  yet 
organized,  and  Henry  George's  Progress  and  Poverty y 
a  book  of  tremendous  significance,  was  not  published 
until  1879.  In  the  intellectual  circles  of  that  time 
two  groups  were  conspicuous  above  all  others,  the 
utilitarians  and  the  men  of  the  Oxford  movement. 


^  There  was  of  course  always  a  certain  political  current  in  favor  of  state 
interference,  stronger  towards  the  end  of  the  period  than  at  the  beginning. 
Factory  Acts  were  passed  from  time  to  time  to  regulate  hours  of  labor  or 
conditions;  and  in  1870  the  great  Education  Act  was  passed  and  amended 
in  1876,  making  elementary  education  compulsory.  It  is  interesting  to 
find  that  Carlyle  was  one  of  the  earliest  advocates  of  state  control.  At  a 
time  when  there  was  wide-spread  opposition  to  the  Poor  Law  Amendment 
Act  of  1834,  which  first  established  a  central  control  of  poor  relief,  Carlyle 
(in  Chartism)  welcomed  the  law:  "supervised  by  the  central  government, 
in  what  spirit  soever  executed,  is  supervisal  from  a  centre." 

^  In  1868  occurred  the  first  meeting  of  the  Trade-Union  Congress.  In 
1871  the  Trade  Unions  Act  recognized  the  legality  of  unions;  and  in  1875 
the  repeal  of  the  Criminal  Law  Amendment  Act  (passed  in  1871,  virtually 
making  unionism  illegal)  fully  established  collective  bargaining  as  legal. 
The  Independent  Labor  Party  was  not  formed  until  1892. 

'  Cj.  Webb,  History  oj  Trade  Unionism,  250. 


I 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       303 

One,  chiefly  commercial,  held  up  the  glories  of  Eng- 
lish industry  and  trade,  and  preached  material 
progress;  the  other,  chiefly  clerical,  glorified  the 
Church  as  the  savior  of  society:  and  neither  group 
voiced  the  great  social  stirrings  of  the  people.  Even 
John  Stuart  Mill,  in  some  respects  the  most  humane 
and  most  prophetic  intellect  of  his  time,  and  the  high 
priest  of  the  Liberals,  never  entirely  shook  off  the 
effects  of  hii  earlier  and  narrower  utilitarianism. 
"Laissez-faire^''  he  said  in  his  Principles  of  Political 
Economy^  "should  be  the  general  practice:  every 
departure  from  it,  unless  required  by  some  great 
good,  is  a  certain  evil."  ^  Economics,  in  utilitarian 
circles  at  least,  «vas  not  yet  socialized,  and  if  social 
problems  were  discussed  at  all  the  discussion  was 
generally  carried  on  in  the  high  and  dry  atmosphere 
of  Ricardian  principles — rent,  value,  consumption, 
production,  profits,  losses, — an  atmosphere  far  re- 
moved from  the  dust  and  din  of  the  toiling  masses 
who  had  come  into  existence  in  the  wake  of  the 
industrial  revolution. 

Into  this  atmosphere  Carlyle  and  Ruskin  came  as 
with  the  effect  of  an  electric  storm,  bringing  men  once 
more  face  to  face  with  the  elemental  forces  of  life  and 
arousing  within  them  the  hope  of  a  better  day.  From 
1835,  ^°^  twenty-five  years,  Carlyle  (to  consider  him 
first)  was  the  dominant  literary  personality  of  Eng- 
land. Coming  into  his  presence,  out  of  the  academic 
or  social  life  of  early  Victorian  times  was,  as  Lady 
Ashburton  remarked,  "like  returning  from  some  con- 
ventional world  to  the  human  race."    His  books,  his 

1  Principles,  950:  Ashley's  Edition  of  1909. 


304  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

lectures,  his  home,  were  the  sources  and  center  of 
an  extraordinary  personal  force  that  fell  powerfully 
upon  many  intellectual  and  spiritual  leaders  of  that 
day,  old  and  young,  but  chiefly  young.  The  voice  of 
Carlyle  to  the  generations  of  college  men  in  1840- 
1850  was  no  doubt  mainly  a  voice  to  awaken  and 
thrill,  but  it  carried  tidings  of  the  oppressed  poor  and, 
a  very  definite  report  that  all  was  not  well  in  the  great 
outside  world  of  industry.  Sartor  Resartus^  the  Es- 
says^ Past  and  Present^  were  indeed  a  new  charter 
of  freedom  to  the  men  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
universities.  But  they  were  more;  for  they  pro- 
claimed the  spirit  of  democracy  even  while  they 
condemned  the  method  of  democracy.  As  Professor 
MacCunn  says:  "It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to 
affirm  that  though  all  the  political  predictions  which 
Carlyle  ever  penned  were  falsified,  though  he  were 
proved  wrong  in  his  forecasts  and  Mill  and  Mazzini 
right,  he  would  still  remain  one  of  the  great  political 
writers  of  the  century.  .  .  .  For  the  root  and  the 
fruit  of  democracy — what  are  they  but  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  worth,  dignity  and  possibilities  of  the 
individual  life,  however  flickering  and  obscure? 
Carlyle  joins  hands  with  Mill  and  Mazzini  here.  He 
outdoes  them.  No  writer  in  our  literature,  it  is  safe  to 
say,  has  done  more  for  this,  the  essence  of  the  demo- 
cratic spirit,  than  this  sworn  foe  of  political  democ- 
racy." ^    It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  readers  of  Car- 

^  MacCunn,  Six  Radical  Thinkers,  163-4.  Mazzini,  too,  recognized 
(1843)  the  democratic  spirit  of  Carlyle:  "Amidst  the  noise  of  ma- 
chinery, wheels,  and  steam-engines,  he  has  been  able  to  distinguish 
the  stifled  plaint  of  the  prisoned  spirit,  the  sigh  of  millions."  {Essays, 
lis-) 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       305 

lyle  could  have  escaped  these  social  implications  in 
his  thought.  Emerson  recognized  them  fully  in  his 
review  of  Past  and  Present  in  the  Dial.  "It  is  a 
political  tract,"  he  said,  "and  since  Burke,  since 
Milton,  we  have  had  nothing  to  compare  with  it.  .  .  . 
The  book  of  a  powerful  and  accomplished  thinker, 
who  has  looked  with  naked  eyes  at  the  dreadful  polit- 
ical signs  in  England  for  the  last  few  years."  ^  Lecky, 
the  historian,  who  was  far  from  being  a  Carlylean, 
considered  Carlvle's  social  influence  upon  his  genera- 
tion to  have  been  very  great,  particularly  in  his  resist- 
ance to  laissez-faire y  in  his  support  of  the  cause  of 
increased  government  regulation,  and  in  his  cham- 
pionship of  education,  emigration,  and  better  rela- 
tions between  masters  and  men.  "It  will  be  found," 
said  Lecky,  "  that  although  he  may  not  have  been 
wiser  than  those  who  advocated  the  other  side,  yet 
his  words  contained  exactly  that  kind  of  truth  which 
was  most  needed  or  most  generally  forgotten,  and  his 
reputation  will  steadily  rise."r  The  testimony  of 
Edward  Caird,  successor  to  Jowett  as  Master  of 
Balliol,  is  to  much  the  same  effect.  Caird  was  a 
student  at  the  University  of  Glasgow  in  1850-1856, 
and  at  Oxford  in  1 860-1 863.  Carlyle,  he  says  "was 
the  greatest  literary  influence  of  my  student  days.  .  . 
And  undoubtedly,  at  that  time,  Carlyle  was  the  au- 
thor who  exercised  the  most  powerful  charm  upon 
young  men  who  were  beginning  to  think.  .  .  .  Ngr 
was  he  merely  a  student  who  cast  new  light  on  the 
past;  he  was  inspired  with  a  passion  for  social  reform, 

'Emerson;  Works,  Centenary  Edition,  XII,  379. 
^Carlyle's  Message  to  his  Age  (1891),  in  llistorial  Essays,  106. 


3o6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

which  at  least  in  this  country/  was  then  felt  by  few. 
He  expressed,  almost  for  the  first  time  in  English, 
that  disgust  at  the  mean  achievements  of  what  we 
call  civilization,  that  generous  wrath  at  the  arbitrary 
limitation  of  its  advantages,  that  deep  craving  for  a 
better  order  of  social  life,  which  is  the  source  of  so 
many  of  the  most  important  social  and  political 
movements  of  the  present  day."  ^  It  is  needless  to 
accumulate  testimony  where  the  evidence  is  so  pre- 
ponderatingly  in  the  same  scale,  but  one  further 
statement  may  perhaps  be  allowed,  since  it  comes 
from  a  critic  who  in  his  thinking  was  much  nearer  to 
Mill  than  to  Carlyle,  and  whose  opinion  therefore  has 
exceptional  weight, — the  statement  of  Leslie  Stephen. 
In  his  English  Utilitarians  he  says:  "It  must  be 
allowed,  I  think,  that  such  men  as  Carlyle  and 
Emerson,  for  example,  vague  and  even  contradictory 
as  was  their  teaching,  did  more  to  rouse  lofty  aspira- 
tion and  to  moralize  political  creeds,  though  less  for 
the  advancement  of  sound  methods  of  inquiry,  than 
the  teaching  of  the  Utilitarians."  ^ 

1  Caird  was  addressing  the  Dialectic  Society  of  the  University  of  Glas- 
gow. 

^  The  Genius  of  Carlyie,  in  Essays  on  Literature  and  Philosophy,  I,  233-4. 
The  biographer  of  Caird  says  that  "throughout  his  career  as  Master  he 
dehvered  impressive  lay-sermons  on  social  problems  in  the  College  Hall, 
and  occasionally  at  Toyribee  Hall."  (D.N.  B.)  Since  he  was  all  his  life 
an  admirer  of  Carlyle,  may  we  not  beheve  that  even  as  Master  the  old 
influence  was  at  work.? 

'  English  Utilitariansy  HI,  477.  Stephen  acknowledged  the  influence  of 
Carlyle  upon  himself  In  letters  to  C.  E.  Norton  he  said:  "Certainly 
there  is  no  one  now  (1880)  who  is  to  the  rising  generation  what  Mill  and 
Carlyle  were  to  us.  .  .  .  Nobody,  I  think,  could  ever  put  so  much 
character  in  every  sentence.  .  .  .  It  seems  to  me  as  if  he  had  fuel  enough 
to  keep  a  dozen  steam-engines  going.  .  .  .  He  fascinates  me  like  nobody 
else. "     (Maitland's  Life  and  LeUers  of  Leslie  Stephen,  341,  377-8.)  Steph- 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       307 

Who,  the  reader  may  ask,  were  the  men  touched  as 
Stephen  has  described  in  this  extraordinary  tribute? 
They  were  mainly  the  young  intellectuals,  as  we  have 
seen,  beginners  in  the  voyage  of  life,  who,  as  Froude 
has  told  us  in  his  great  biography,  were  drifting 
without  chart  or  compass  and  whom  Carlyle  brought 
to  land.  "To  the  young,  the  generous,  to  every  one 
who  took  life  seriously,  who  wished  to  make  an  honor- 
able use  of  it,"  says  Froude,  "his  words  were  like  the 
morning  reveille.  .  .  .  Amidst  the  controversies, 
the  arguments,  the  doubts,  the  crowding  uncertain- 
ties of  forty  years  ago,  Carlyle's  voice  was  to  the 
young  generation  of  Englishmen  like  the  sound  of 
'ten  thousand  trumpets'  in  their  ears."    And  he  adds 

en's  brother,  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  although  a  follower  of  Mill,  was 
strongly  drawn  to  Carlyle.  He  found  the  later  Mill  "sentimental,"  and  he 
turned  sympathetically  to  Carlyle,  whose  writings  in  their  "contempt  for 
haphazard,  hand-to-mouth  modes  of  legislation,  the  love  of  vigorous  ad- 
ministration on  broad,  intelligible  principles,  entirely  expressed  his  own 
feeling."  {Life  of  Sir  James  fitzjames  Stephen,  by  Leslie  Stephen,  315.) 

Among  many  other  statements  as  to  the  social  influence  of  Carlyle,  the 
following  may  be  cited:  "It  was  not  his  mission  to  legislate,  but  to  inspire 
legislators.  Every  man  who  since  his  time  has  tried  to  lift  politics  above 
party  has  owed  something  directly  or  indirectly  to  his  influence,  and  the 
best  have  owed  the  most."  (Richard  Garnett,  Life  of  Carlyle,  72.)  "One 
of  Mr.  Carlyle's  chief  and  just  glories  is,  that  for  more  than  forty  years  he 
has  clearly  seen,  and  kept  constantly  and  conspicuously  in  his  own  sight 
and  that  of  his  readers,  the  profoundly  important  crisis  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  are  living.  The  moral  and  social  dissolution  in  progress  about 
us,  and  the  enormous  peril  of  sailing  blindfold  and  haphazard,  without 
rudder  or  compass  or  chart,  have  always  been  fully  visible  to  him,  and  it 
is  no  fault  of  his  if  they  have  not  become  equally  plain  to  his  contempo- 
raries." (Morley,  Miscellanies,  137.)  "His  great  and  real  work  was  the 
attack  on  Utilitarianism.  ...  It  is  his  real  glory  that  he  was  the  first  to 
see  clearly  and  say  plainly  the  great  truth  of  our  time;  that  the  wealth  of 
the  state  is  not  the  prosperity  of  the  people.  ...  In  this  matter  he  is  to 
be  noted  in  connection  with  national  developments  much  later;  for  he 
thus  became  the  first  prophet  of  the  Socialists."  (Chesterton,  Victorian 
Age  in  Literature ^  55.) 


3o8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

that  in  the  practical  objects  at  which  Carlyle  was 
aiming  Carlyle  was  more  radical  than  the  radicals!  ^ 
If  we  inquire  who  belonged  to  this  company  of  elect 
spirits,  we  can  readily  recall  the  names  of  many,  each 
long  since  placed  in  his  niche  of  fame.  There  was 
Emerson,  who  made  his  pilgrimage  to  Scotland  in 
1833  to  talk  with  the  solitary  thinker  whose  Essays 
had  already  helped  to  quicken  his  own  awakening 
thought.  There  was  John  Stuart  Mill,  a  man  utterly 
different  from  Carlyle,  but  a  man  whose  hard-won 
victory  over  the  cramped  utilitarianism  in  which  he 
had  been  reared  owed  encouragement  from  the  mystic 
radical  of  Craigenputtock.  In  his  Autobiography  he 
generously  acknowledged  "Carlyle's  earlier  writings 
as  one  of  the  channels  through  which  I  received  the 
influences  which  enlarged  my  early  narrow  creed. 
.  .  .  The  wonderful  power  with  which  he  put  (his 
truths)  forth  made  a  deep  impression  upon  me,  and  I 
was  during  a  long  period  one  of  his  most  fervent 
admirers;  but  the  good  his  writings  did  me,  was  not 
as  a  philosophy  to  instruct,  but  as  poetry  to  ani- 
mate." 2  There  were  Charles  Buller  and  John  Sterl- 
ing, early  removed  by  death  from  a  stage  on  which 
they  were  destined  to  play  brilliant  parts;  each  of 
whom,  along  with  many  others,  came  under  a  fascina- 
tion best  expressed  by  Sterling  a  few  weeks  before  his 
end  in  a  letter  to  Carlyle:  "Towards  me  it  is  still  more 
true  than  towards  England  that  no  man  has  been  and 
done  like  you."  ^    There  were  Maurice  and  Kingsley 

'  Life  of  Carlyle,  III,  248-251. 
-  Autobiography,  174,  175.    Cf.  Letters  of  Mill,  I,  28. 
^  Carlyle's  Life  of  Sterling,  229.     Sterling's  full-length  appreciation  of 
Carlyle  was  his  essay  in  the  London  and  Westminster  Review  for  1839.    In 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       309 

and  Dickens,  all  of  whom  at  one  time  or  another  felt 
the  energizing  power  of  the  Chelsea  Prometheus.^ 
And  there  were  Froude  and  Ruskin,  foremost  among 

his  letters  to  Emerson  there  are  a  number  of  enthusiastic  references  to 
Carlyle:  Correspondence  of  Emerson  arid  Sterling,  17,  26,  34,  also,  E.  W. 
Emerson's  introductory  note.  Charles  Buller  (1806-1848)  was  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  members  of  the  radical  group  of  his  day,  including  Roe- 
buck, Mill,  Grote,  Molesworth,  and  Macaulay.  Carlyle  tutored  him  in  his 
youth  during  months  from  August,  1822,  to  the  summer  of  1824.  "When 
we  hear,"  says  Richard  Garnett,  "that  Charles  Buller's  principal  fault 
was  then  (i.  e.,  in  student  days)  considered  to  be  indolence,  and  remember 
that  he  lived  to  frame  in  conjunction  with  Edward  Gibbon  Wakefield  the 
Durham  Report,  the  charter  of  Colonial  self-government,  and  died 
President  of  the  Poor  Law  Board,  with  his  foot  on  the  threshold  of  the 
Cabinet,  we  may  conclude  that  Carlyle's  influence  was  precisely  what  he 
required."  (Life  of  Carlyle,  35.)  Carlyle's  parting  memorial  to  Buller  in 
the  Examiner  for  December,  1848,  is  full  of  the  love  of  an  older  for  a 
younger  friend.  "In  the  coming  storms  of  trouble  one  radiant  element 
will  be  wanting  now.  ...  He  was  not  the  man  to  grapple,  in  its  dark 
and  deadly  dens,  with  the  Lernaean  coil  of  Social  Hydras;  perhaps  not 
under  any  circumstances:  but  he  did,  unassisted,  what  he  could;  faith- 
fully himself  did  something,  nay  something  truly  considerable." 

'The  Christian  Socialists,  Maurice  and  Kingsley,  were  as  unlike 
Carlyle  in  certain  directions  as  Mill  was  in  others,  and  yet  they  too  were 
strongly  influenced.  "  Maurice  says  he  has  been  more  edified  by  Carlyle's 
Lectures  than  by  anything  he  has  heard  for  a  long  while,  and  that  he  has 
the  greatest  reverence  for  Carlyle,  but  that  it  is  not  reciprocal,  for  he  is 
sure  Carlyle  thinks  him  a 'sham.'"  [From  a  letter  of  Strachey  (1838), 
quoted  in  Life  of  Maurice  by  his  son,  I,  250.]  In  a  notable  letter  (1862) 
written  to  J.  M.  Ludlow,  after  Maurice  had  had  a  long  conversation 
(with  many  difl^erences)  with  Carlyle,  Maurice  refers  to  Carlyle  as  "  a  man 
who  has  taught  me  so  much. "  {Ibid.,  II,  404).  Kingsley  was  far  nearer  to 
Carlyle  than  was  Maurice,  both  in  temper  and  thought,  and  owed  far 
more  to  Carlyle's  stimulating  force.  He  read  the  Essays  and  the  French 
Revolution  while  an  undergraduate  at  Cambridge  and  was  "utterly 
delighted."  His  biographers  testify  to  the  "remarkable  eff"ect"  (the 
words  are  Mrs.  Kingsley's)  on  his  mind  of  the  writings  of  Carlyle.  Alton 
Locke,  probably  Kingsley's  most  effective  work  for  social  reform,  was 
refused  by  the  first  publisher  to  whom  it  was  offered  and  it  was  then 
accepted  by  Chapman  through  the  friendly  offices  of  Carlyle,  who  was 
"right  glad  myself  to  hear  of  a  new  explosion,  a  salvo  of  red-hot  shot 
against  the  devil's  dung-heap  from  that  particular  battery. "  {Charles 
Kingsley,  Letters  and  Memorials  of  his  Life,  128.)  Readers  oi  Alton  Locke 
do  not  need  to  be  reminded  how  much  of  Carlyle  it  contains.     Dickens 


3IO  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

disciples,  of  whom  further  account  here  would  be 
superfluous.  The  roll  could  easily  be  extended,  as  all 
students  of  Carlyle  know,  but  we  may  well  break  it 
off  with  a  brief  reference  to  two  other  names.  One  is 
the  name  of  W.  E.  Forster,  Bradford  manufacturer, 
social  reformer,  Gladstonian  statesman,  and  author 
of  the  Elementary  Education  Act  of  1870  already 
several  times  referred  to.  Forster  knew  Carlyle 
intimately  and  acknowledged  his  influence  freely. 
"If  Carlyle's  companionship,"  he  said  in  1847,  "has 
had  any  mental  effect  upon  me,  it  has  been  to  give  me 
a  greater  desire  and  possibly  an  increased  power  to 
discern  the  real  ^meanings  of  things,'  to  go  straight  to 
the  truth  wherever  its  hiding-place,  and  sometimes 
his  words,  not  so  much  by  their  purport  as  by  their 
tone  and  spirit,  sounded  through  me  like  the  blast  of 
a  trumpet,  stirring  all  my  powers  to  the  battle  of  life." 
"Carlyle's  writings,"  says  Forster's  biographer, 
"exercised  their  fascinating  influence  over  his  mind, 
and  every  day  of  his  life  during  his  first  decade  at 
Bradford  (z.  ^.,  1 842-1 852)  seemed  to  be  marked  by  a 
new  stage  in  the  growth  of  his  active  interest  in  the 
social    politics    of   the    time."  ^      The   other   name, 

was  a  fervent  admirer  of  the  Chelsea  sage.  To  him  he  dedicated  Hard 
Times  (1854),  and  owed  much  to  him  for  the  inspiration  of  one  of  his  best 
Christmas  stories,  The  Chimes  (1844).  "I  would  go  at  all  times,"  said 
Dickens,  "farther  to  see  Carlyle  than  any  man  alive."  The  French 
Revolution  he  read,  as  he  says  in  his  extravagant  way,  "for  the  500th 
time,"  and  of  course  drew  from  it  no  little  of  the  inspiration  that  helped  to 
create  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  (1859). 

^  Life  of  Forster,  by  T.  Wemyss  Reid,  1 19,  81.  It  was  Carlyle's  mention 
of  Thbmas  Cooper,  a  famous  Chartist,  that  brought  Forster  into  touch 
with  Cooper.  Forster  was  very  active  i"n  Chartist  meetings  and  disturbs 
ances,.  especially  at  Bradford,  and  was  deeply  and  influentially  inter- 
ested all  his  life  in  social  conditions. 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       311 

presently  to  be  mentioned  more  prominently  in  con- 
nection with  Ruskin,  is  that  of  William  Morris,  who 
as  a  young  man  heard  and  believed  the  gospel  of  work  • 
as  preached  in  the  early  writings  of  Carlyle.  Morris 
read  Carlyle  at  Oxford,  and  according  to  his  biog- 
rapher, Mackail,  Carlyle  shared  with  Ruskin  the 
strongest  influence  that  Morris  received  from  prose 
authors,  an  influence  that  held  him  to  the  end.^  In 
the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine^  published  in 
1856  by  undergraduates  mainly  under  the  leadership 
of  Morris,  there  were  five  articles  of  review  and 
praise  of  Carlyle,-  to  whom  (the  writer  says)  "we 
owe  that  growing  seriousness  of  tone,  which  has  now 
won  a  place  even  in  novels,  and  from  kindred  minds 
(for  example  Kingsley's)  receives  an  expression  only 
less  ardent  than  his  own.  .  .  .  To  me  they  (z.  <?., 
Carlyle's  thoughts  and  counsels)  appear  practical  in 
the  highest  sense;  planted  in  the  very  loftiest  concep- 
tion of  human  duty  and  destiny,  and  in  a  clear  dis- 
cernment of  the  divine  Laws  written  in  the  main 
facts  of  every  Social  matter  that  he  examines.  .  .  . 
So  practical  are  they,  that  I  often  wish  that  Carlyle 
had  not  been  one  of  England's  Writers,  but  one  of 
England's  Governors!"  ^  Youthful  enthusiasm  could 
scarcely  go  further.  It  was  well,  no  doubt,  that  the 
enthusiasm  was  youthful  and  would  sober  down  with 

1  Life  of  Morris,  I,  219;  c/.  also,  II,  28,  76.  In  1885  when  Morris  sent 
his  list  of  the  "  Best  Hundred  Rooks"  to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  (the  list 
contained  but  fifty-four  titles),  he  included  "Carlyle's  Works"  in  a  place 
with  Sir  Thomas  More  and  Ruskin  .  {Collected  Works  of  Morris,  XXII, 
inlro.  XVI.) 

2  Although  prfihahly  not  written  by  Morris  they  could  hardly  have 
appeared  without  his  approval. 

^Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine  (bound  volume),  669,  770. 


312  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

age.  But  where  shall  we  look  for  better  evidence  of 
the  fire  that  Carlyle  kindled  in  the  hearts  of  young 
England  from  1835  to  i860? 

It  was  from  i860  onward  that  Ruskin's  influence 
began  to  count  most  for  social  and  economic  reform. 
By  this  time  the  voice  of  Carlyle  had  become,  as 
Arnold  declared,  "sorely  strained,  over-used,  and 
misused,"  and  his  direct  efi'ect  as  a  personal  force  had 
begun  to  wane.  Ruskin's  personality,  although 
distinguished  in  an  eminent  degree,  never  captured 
his  contemporaries  as  did  the  personality  of  Carlyle. 
But  his  thought,  apart  from  its  stimulating  moral 
quality,  has  been  more  fruitful  than  Carlyle's,  be- 
cause it  has  carried  with  it  a  richer  and  more  definite 
social  program,  a  program  already  fulfilled  in  various 
ways.  His  writings,  particularly  Unto  This  Last  and 
Time  and  Tide  came  upon  many  minds  like  a  new 
gospel  and  awakened  within  them  lasting  impulses  for 
direct  social  action.  Illustrations  of  this  effect  have 
already  been  offered  in  previous  chapters,  including 
reference  to  such  workers  as  Frederic  Harrison,  F.  J. 
Furnivall,  Arnold  Toynbee,  and  Miss  Octavia  Hill.^ 

^  Harrison,  Ruskin's  biographer  in  the  English  Men  of  Letters  series,  has 
recorded  numerous  testimonies  of  his  debt  to  Ruskin:  e.  g.,  "Ruskin's 
essays  Unto  This  Last  which  I  read  as  they  appeared  in  numbers  in  the 
Cornhill  Magazine  in  i860,  filled  me  as  with  a  sense  of  a  new  gospel  on  this 
earth,  and  with  a  keen  desire  to  be  in  personal  touch  with  the  daring 
spirit  who  had  defied  the  Rabbis  of  the  current  economics."  {Autobio- 
graphical Memoirs,  I,  230.)  Furnivall,  when  a  young  man,  met  Ruskin 
(in  1849).  "Thus  began,"  he  says,  "a  friendship  which  was  for  many 
years  the  chief  joy  of  my  life."  {D.  N.  B.)  It  was  Furnivall  who  brought 
Ruskin  into  touch  with  Maurice,  and  thus  into  active  relations  with  the 
Working  Men's  College.  Arnold  Toynbee,  whose  connection  witlv  the 
Hinksey  Diggers  has  already  been  described,  lectured  to  popular  audi- 
ences on  economic  questions  (the  lectures  are  now  gathered  into  the  nota- 
ble volume,  Industrial  Revolution),  and  lived  for  a  time  in  quarters  in  Lon- 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BEITER  ORDER       313 

"Probably  none  of  his  experiments,"  says  Ruskin's 
principal  biographer  and  editor,  Sir  E.  T.  Cook,  "will 
have  had  so  permanent  and  so  fruitful  an  influence 
towards  the  solution  of  modern  problems  as  the 
demonstration  which  he  enabled  Miss  Octavia  Hill 
to  give  in  model  landlordism.  Ruskin  was  fond  of 
preaching  what  has  been  called  the  'slum  crusade'  in 
his  lectures  at  Oxford,  and  the  movement  for  Uni- 
versity and  College  'Settlements'  owes  not  a  little  to 
his  exhortations."  Cook's  evidence  of  the  power  of 
Unto  This  Last  is  no  less  pertinent.  Although  this 
book  sold  slowly  at  first  (the  edition  of  1862  was  not 
exhausted  in  ten  years),  its  circulation  greatly  in- 
creased when  the  publication  of  it  was  transferred  in 
1873  ^°  ^^-  George  Allen.  "A  few  years  later,"  says 
Cook,"  Ruskin  re-issued  the  book  on  his  own  account, 
and  the  rate  of  sale  during  the  following  thirty  years 
was  2000  per  annum.  Ruskin  was  told  of  a  working 
man  who,  being  too  poor  to  buy  the  book,  had  copied 
it  out  word  for  word.  Subsequently  a  selection  of 
extracts,  sold  at  a  penny,  was  circulated  widely 
among  the  working  classes,  and  the  book  has  been 
translated  into  French,  German,  and  Italian.  .  .  . 
When  the  Parliament  of  1906  was  elected,  there  was 
a  great  hubbub  about  the  large  contingent  of  Labor 
Members,  and  an  ingenious  journalist  sent  circulars 
to  them  asking  them  to  state.  What  were  the  Books 
that  had  Influenced  them?  Some  said  one,  and  some 
another;  but  the  book  which  appeared  in  the  greatest 

don  East  End,  workinK  for  the  poor  and  seeking  to  understand  their 
life.  Toynbee  Hall,  in  J'.ast  London,  the  pioneer  institution  in  Settlement 
work,  was  named  after  him,  as  a  tribute  to  iiis  educational  and  social 
work  among  the  poor. 


314  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

number  of  lists  was  Ruskin's  Unto  This  Lasty^ 
Additional  proof  of  Ruskin's  effect  upon  the  working 
class  is  furnished  by  William  Morris  in  his  lecture  on 
Art  and  Socialism  (1884):  "Apart  from  any  trivial 
words  of  my  own,  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  such  a 
hearty  feeling  toward  John  Ruskin  among  working- 
class  audiences:  they  can  see  the  prophet  in  him 
rather  than  the  fantastic  rhetorician,  as  more  super- 
fine audiences  do.  That  is  a  good  omen,  I  think,  for 
the  education  of  times  to  come."  It  was  a  good  omen 
indeed,  and  the  ferment  has  been  working  since  then, 
through  various  Ruskin  Societies  (organized  "to 
encourage  and  promote  the  study  and  circulation  of 
Mr.  Ruskin's  writings"),  and  through  the  Ruskin 
College,  at  Oxford,  a  notable  institution  for  teaching 
working  men,  and  established  as  a  direct  result  of 
Ruskin's  influence. ^ 

Ruskin's  teaching  has  told  no  less  steadily  and 
effectively  upon  economic  doctrine,  according  to  the 
reports  of  accredited  English  witnesses.     Mr.  J.  A. 

1  Works,  XVII,  intro.,  CXI;  Cook,  Life  of  Ruskin,  II,  13-14. 

2  See  Hobson's  appendix  on  Ruskin  Societies  and  the  Work,  in  John 
Ruskin,  Social  Reformer,  326-328;  also  an  article  in  the  Fortnightly  Review 
(1900,  V.  67,  p.  325)  on  The  Ruskin  Hall  Movement.  In  the  Survey  for 
August  30,  1919,  is  the  report  of  a  speech  in  New  York,  by  Miss  Margaret 
Bondfield,  "official  representative  of  the  British  Trade  Union  Congress," 
on  how  British  labor  began  to  educate  itself.  Among  other  things  she 
says:  "Ruskin  College  in  Oxford,  though  it  is  pretty  stodgy,  and  though 
the  students  there,  while  they  are  in  Oxford,  are  not  0/ Oxford,  has  played 
Its  part  in  labor  education.  Trade  union?  send  up  students  who  are 
expected  to  come  back  and  give  the  union  the  advantage  of  their  knowl- 
edge. Frank  Hodges  made  a  brilliant  success  there,  and  then  went  back 
to  digging  coal.  Young  as  he  was,  he  soon  was  put  in  as  general  secretary 
of  the  great  Miners'  Federation,  and  his  brilliance,  together  with  the 
power  of  Robert  Smillie,  the  president,  have  lately  enabled  the  federation 
to  make  history." 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       315 

Hobson,  perhaps  the  foremost  of  these  and  himself  a 
Ruskinian  in  many  ways,  counts  as  the  most  dis- 
tinguished services  of  Ruskin  his  insistence  upon  a 
standard  of  human  well-being  as  a  substitute  for  the 
monetary  standard  of  wealth.  "This  assertion  of 
vital  value  as  the  standard  and  criterion,"  says  Mr. 
Hobson,  "is,  of  course,  no  novelty.  It  has  underlain 
all  the  more  comprehensive  criticisms  of  orthodox 
political  economy  by  moralists  and  social  reformers. 
By  far  the  most  brilliant  and  effective  of  these 
criticisms,  that  of  John  Ruskin,  was  expressly  formu- 
lated in  terms  of  vital  value.  .  .  .  This  vital  crite- 
rion he  brought  to  bear  with  great  skill,  alike  upon  the 
processes  of  production  and  consumption,  disclosing 
the  immense  discrepancies  between  monetary  costs 
and  human  costs,  monetary  wealth  and  vital  wealth. 
No  one  ever  had  a  more  vivid  and  comprehensive 
view  of  the  essentially  organic  nature  of  the  harmony 
of  various  productive  activities  needed  for  a  whole- 
some life,  and  of  the  related  harmony  of  uses  and 
satisfactions  on  the  consumptive  side.  His  mind 
seized  with  incomparable  force  of  vision  the  cardinal 
truth  of  human  economics,  viz.,  that  every  piece  of 
concrete  wealth  must  be  valued  in  terms  of  the  vital 
costs  of  its  production  and  the  vital  uses  of  its  con- 
sumption, and  his  most  effective  assault  upon  current 
economic  theory  was  based  upon  its  complete  inade- 
quacy to  afford  such  information."  ^  Mr.  Ernest 
Barker,  still  more  recently  (191 5),  has  recorded  his 
opinion  to  much  the  same  effect.    Ruskin's  teaching, 

'  fVork  and  Wealth  (1914),  9.  Cf.  John  Ruskin,  Social  Reformer,  89,  309, 
and  preface. 


3i6  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

he  says,  "has  influenced  the  doctrine  of  pure  econom- 
ics. It  has  helped  to  turn  economists  since  the  days 
of  Jevons  from  the  theory  of  production  to  the  theory 
of  consumption;  it  has  helped  to  correct  the  old 
emphasis  laid  on  saving,  and  to  give  more  weight  to 
spending;  it  has  helped  vitally  to  modify  the  old 
conception  of  value  as  mainly  determined  by  cost  of 
production,  and  to  give  more  scope  to  the  influence  of 
utility  in  the  creation  of  value.  Nor  has  Ruskin's 
teaching  only  influenced  economic  science;  it  has  also 
afl"ected  the  theory  and  the  practice  of  politics.  .  .  . 
And  the  vogue  of  his  writings  enabled  him,  perhaps 
more  than  any  other  writer,  to  help  men  to  shed  the 
old  distrust  of  the  State,  and  to  welcome,  as  men 
since  1 870  have  more  and  more  welcomed,  the  activ- 
ity of  society  on  behalf  of  its  members.  If  Ruskin 
was  not  the  begetter  of  English  Socialism,  he  was  a 
foster-father  to  many  English  Socialists."  ^ 

First  among  these  was  William  Morris,  master  of 
modern  craftsmen.    "  The  whole  of  the  Socialism  with 

^Political  Thought  from  Spencer  lo  To-Day,  195-6.  Cf.  Chesterton: 
"He  was  not  so  great  a  man  as  Carlyle,  but  he  was  a  much  more  clear- 
headed man.  .  .  .  On  this  side  of  his  soul  (i.  e.,  social  side)  Ruskin 
became  the  second  founder  of  Socialism."  {Victorian  Literature,  67-8. 
Cf.  also  opinion  of  Geddes  (in  John  Ruskin,  Economist,  42);  Ingram  (in 
History  of  Political  Economy,  1915  ed.);  and  Stimson  (in  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Economics,  II,  445.]  According  to  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw,  Ruskin 
did  not  influence  the  Fabians:  "  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  of  the  three  great 
propagandist  amateurs  of  political  economy,  Henry  George,  Marx,  and 
Ruskin,  Ruskin  alone  seems  to  have  had  no  effect  on  the  Fabians.  Here 
and  there  in  the  Socialist  movement  workmen  turned  up  who  had  read 
Fors  Clavigera  or  Unto  This  Last;  and  some  "of  the  more  well-to-do  no 
doubt  have  read  the  first  chapter  of  Alunera  Puheris.  But  Ruskin's  name 
was  hardly  mentioned  in  the  Fabian  Society.  My  explanation  is  that, 
barring  Olivier,  the  Fabians  were  inveterate  Philistines."  {History  of  the 
Fabian  Society,  by  Pease,  263.) 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       317 

which  Morris  Identified  himself  so  prominently  in  the 
eighties,"  says  Mackail,  "had  been  imphcitly  con- 
tained and  the  greater  part  of  It  explicitly  stated,  In 
the  pages  of  Unto  This  Last  in  1862,  whe'-.  Morris  had 
just  begun  the  work  of  his  life  as  a  manufacturer.  .  . 
All  his  serious  references  to  Ruskin  showed  that  he  re- 
tained towards  him  the  attitude  of  a  scholar  to  a  great 
teacher  and  master,  not  only  In  matters  of  art,  but 
throughout  the  whole  sphere  of  human  life."'  Ref- 
erence has  already  been  made.  In  a  previous  chapter, 
to  the  powerful  effect  which  The  Nature  of  Gothic  had 
upon  Morris,  in  the  Oxford  days.  In  his  introduction 
to  the  Kelmscott  Edition  (1892)  of  this  famous  mani- 
festo— "one  of  the  very  few  inevitable  utterances  of 
the  century,"  he  called  it — he  recorded  his  opinion 
that  the  social  teaching  of  Ruskin  was  more  signifi- 
cant than  his  entire  criticism  of  art  Itself.  "Some 
readers  will  perhaps  wonder,"  he  wrote,  "that  In  this 
important  chapter  of  Ruskin  I  have  found  it  neces- 
sary to  consider  ethical  and  political,  rather  than  what 
would  ordinarily  be  thought  the  artistic  side  of  it.  I 
must  answer  that,  delightful  as  is  that  portion  of 
Ruskin's  work  which  describes,  analyzes,  and  criti- 
cises art,  old  and  new,  yet  this  is  not  after  all  the  most 
characteristic  side  of  his  writings.  Indeed,  from  the 
time  at  which  he  wrote  this  chapter  here  reprinted, 
those  ethical  and  political  considerations  have  never 
been  absent  from  his  criticism  of  art;  and,  in  my 
opinion.  It  is  just  this  part  of  his  work,  fairly  begun  in 
The  Nature  of  Gothic,  and  brought  to  Its  culmination 
in  that  great  book  Unto  This  Last,  which  has  had  the 

^  Life  of  Morris,  II,  201,  I,  220. 


3i8  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

most  enduring  and  beneficent  effect  on  his  contem- 
poraries, and  will  have  through  them  on  succeeding 
generations."^  Readers  of  Morris  who  are  also 
readers  of  Ruskin  will  hear  reverberations  of  the 
master's  thought  in  almost  every  lecture  and  essay- 
that  Morris  produced  on  the  subject  of  art  or  social- 
ism, often  accompanied  with  generous  acknowledg- 
ments; for  Morris  took  no  pains  to  conceal  a  main 
source  of  his  inspiration.  His  whole  attack  upon 
modern  life  corresponds  exactly  with  Ruskin's.  He 
assailed  the  ugliness  of  it,  the  loss  of  instinct  for 
beauty  among  people  to-day,  the  "bestial"  econom- 
ics, the  degradation  of  the  worker  by  machine 
labor;  and  he  followed  up  his  attack  with  a  stern 
prophecy  that  a  day  of  change  must  come  when  man- 
kind would  become  an  association  of  workers,  each 
realizing  the  freedom  of  his  soul  in  joyful  labor;  and 
with  an  equally  stern  demand  for  a  return  to  sim- 
plicity in  life  as  a  preparation  for  the  new  order.  Like 
Ruskin,  too,  Morris  discovered  in  medievalism,  in  the 
old  guilds  and  in  Gothic  architecture,  a  clue  to  the 
way  out  of  the  labyrinth  in  which  contemporary 
society  had  become  lost.  Extending  the  notion  of  art 
as  Ruskin  had  extended  it,  he  valiantly  preached  the 
gospel  of  the  democracy  of  art,  upon  a  threefold  text, 
namely,  that  work  must  be  worth  doing,  that  it 
should  be  of  itself  pleasant  to  do,  and  that  it  should  be 
done  under  such  conditions  as  would  make  it  neither 
over-wearisome  nor  over-anxious.- 

This  message,  either  as  Morris  delivered  and  prac- 
ticed it  or  as  it  came  directly  from  Ruskin,  has  made 

1  JVorks,  X,  461-2. 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       319 

notable  impressions  in  two  quarters,  neither  of  which 
can  be  quite  passed  by  in  a  general  summary  such  as 
the  present  one, — the  Arts  and  Crafts  Movement 
and  present  day  Guild  Socialism.  The  Arts  and 
Crafts  Movement,  as  it  came  to  be  named  by  Mr. 
Cobden-Sanderson,  grew  out  of  the  work  of  the  Arts 
and  Crafts  Exhibition  Society,  which  held  its  first 
exhibition  of  decorative  art  in  London  in  1888.  The 
Society  was  created  by  a  group  of  young  artists  drawn 
together  under  the  inspiration  of  Morris  for  the  pur- 
pose of  bringing  about  (to  quote  Mackail)  "a  Renais- 
sance of  the  decorative  arts  which  should  act  at  once 
through  and  towards  more  humanized  conditions  of 
life  both  for  the  workman  and  for  those  for  whom  he 
worked.  .  .  .  The  way  here,  as  in  so  many  other 
instances,  had  been  pointed  out  by  the  far-ranging 
genius  of  Ruskin  long  before  any  steps  were,  or  could 
be,  taken  towards  its  realization."  ^  Thus  if  Morris 
and  his  followers  begot  the  movement,  it  was  Ruskin, 
as  Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson  has  aptly  said,  who  "begot 
the  begetters."  ^  The  movement,  however,  was  not 
only  for  the  purpose  of  renewing  interest  in  the  deco- 
rative arts;  it  was  also  an  endeavor  to  see  what  could 
be  done  towards  the  reconstruction  of  industry  by 
the  creation  of  small  associated  workshops,  wherein 
designer  and  artificer  should  be  one  person  and  not 
two  (or  more),  and  wherein  common  traditions  of 
craft  might  be  established  and  machines  rather  than 
men  should  be  made  the  slaves.     The  most  conspic- 

1  Life  of  Morris,  II,  196,  201. 

"^  Arts  and  Crafts  Movement  (1905),  12.  The  statement  of  the  purposes 
of  the  movement  by  Mr.  Walter  Crane,  in  his  introduction  to  Arts  and 
Crafts  Essays  (1893),  is  shot  through  with  Ruskinism. 


320  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

uous  expression  of  this  aim  has  probably  been  the 
Guild  of  Handicraft,  established  in  East  London  in 
1888,  by  Mr.  C.  R.  Ashbee,  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of 
Ruskin  and  Morris.^  "The  Guild  had  its  begin- 
nings," says  Mr.  Ashbee,  "in  the  years  1886-7  *^^  ^ 
small  Ruskin  class,  conducted  at  Toynbee  Hall."  2 
Its  aims  and  its  achievements  alike,  according  to  its 
founder,  have  all  along  been  due  to  the  inspiration  of 
Ruskin  and  Morris.  And  it  has  constituted  a  most 
challenging  experiment,  for  it  has  sought  to  realize  in 
small  shops  under  co-operative  control  all  the  virtues 
of  the  medieval  guild  system,  including  quality-pro- 
duction before  quantity-production,  fellowship  and 
happiness  in  work,  permanence  of  status,  concentra- 
tion of  force  without  the  deadening  subdivision  of 
labor,  and  the  education  of  the  consumer. 

These  purposes  (or  most  of  them),^  united  with  a 
demand  for  the  overthrow  of  capitalism  and  the 
wage-system,  find  a  more  significant  expression  to- 
day in  the  program  of  a  remarkable  movement  in 
England  known  as  Guild  Socialism.  Originating  in 
1906  with  the  publication  of  an  article  in  the  Con- 
temporary Review  by  Mr.  A.  R.  Orage  and  a  book  on 
the  Restoration  of  the  Gild  System  by  Mr.  A.  J.  Penty, 
the   movement    has    drawn    to    itself  a    number   of 

1  In  1902  the  Guild  was  moved  to  the  country,  at  Campton,  Gloucester- 
shire. In  1907,  after  practically  twenty  years  of  substantial  life,  it  was  in 
financial  straits.  I  regret  to  say  that  I  have  been  unable  to  follow  its 
history  since  the  time  of  Mr.  Ashbee's  record  in  Craftsmanship  in  Indus- 
try, 1908. 

^  An  Endeavor  Tozvards  the  Teaching  of  John  Ruskin  and  JVilliam  Mor- 
ris, (1901),  I. 

'  Guild  Socialism  does  not  advocate  as  a  national  policy  small-scale 
production  in  local  workshops. 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BEITER  ORDER       321 

brilliant  thinkers  and  writers,  who  are  not  only- 
waging  war  upon  competitive  industry,  but  who  are 
also  fighting  a  battle  for  ideals  of  labor  which  go  back 
to  Morris,  and  from  him  to  Ruskin.'  Mr.  Penty,  who 
has  been  called  "  the  prophet  of  the  Guild  idea,"  2  and 
whose  approach  to  labor  problems  appears  to  be 
decidedly  in  the  spirit  of  art  and  medieval  crafts- 
manship, is  an  avowed  follower  of  Ruskin  and  Morris. 
Our  only  hope,  he  says,  in  solving  the  social  questions 
of  to-day  "lies  in  some  such  direction  as  that  fore- 
shadowed by  Ruskin";  whose  guild  idea  he  therefore 
takes  up,  reduces  to  practical  outlines,  and  makes  a 
basis  for  a  re-creation  of  the  present  industrial  order. ' 
Cole  and  Hobson  are  following  a  different  path,  but 
their  eyes  are  set  upon  the  same  goal,^  for  their  ideal- 

'  For  a  full  account  of  the  movement  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  books 
on  Guild  Socialism,  the  most  notable  of  which  thus  far  published  are: 
National  Guilds  (1914),  by  S.  G.  Hobson;  Old  JVorlds  for  New  (1917),  by 
Penty;  Self-Government  in  Industry  (1918),  by  Cole;  Guild  Principles  in 
JVar  and  Peace  (1918),  by  S.  G.  Hobson;  The  Meaning  of  National  Guilds 
(1919),  by  Reckitt  and  Bechhofer.  In  a  word  the  school  stands  for  the 
ownership  of  industry  by  the  state,  but  for  its  management  by  the  work- 
ers, who  are  to  be  organized  locally,  sectionally,  and  nationally,  accord- 
ing to  industries  (organization  by  craft  will  cross-section  organization  by 
industry),  into  democratic  units  known  as  guilds.  "The  title  of  Guild  has 
implicit  in  it  several  unique  industrial  attributes:  it  means  that  public 
recognition  is  accorded  to  the  body,  that  the  monopoly  of  its  particular 
trade  is  vested  in  it,  that  all  its  members  have  an  equal  and  free  status  as 
associates  in  it;  also,  that  the  Guild  spirit  in  work  is  revived."  (Reckitt 
and  Bechhofer,  304.) 

2  Ibid.,  396. 

'  See  his  preface  to  Restoration  of  the  Gild  System.  Penty  also  fully 
recognizes  the  pioneer  work  of  Morris  and  the  men  of  the  Arts  and 
Crafts  Movement.  Cf.  Old  IForlds  for  New,  Ch.  XH;  also  Reckitt  and 
Bechhofer:  among  the  influences  upon  Guild  Socialism  "we  should  find 
the  craftsman's  challenge  and  the  blazing  democracy  of  William  Morris." 
{Intro.,  XHI.) 

*  Penty  has  now  joined  them  in  favoring  national  guilds  as  a  step 
towards  local  guilds.     (Reckitt  and  Bechhofer,  397.) 


322  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

ism  again  is  the  unassailable  idealism  of  Ruskin  and 
Morris.  "I  share  to  the  full,"  says  Cole,  "William 
Morris's  happy  conviction  that  joy  in  life,  and  art  as 
the  expression  of  that  joy,  are  fundamental,  and,  if 
you  will,  natural,  to  free  men  and  women.  I  believe 
that,  if  men  and  women  were  set  free,  as  they  might 
be,  from  economic  necessity,  they  would  set  with  new 
manhood  about  the  creation  of  the  good  life."  ^  Thus 
the  fire  that  Ruskin  lighted  in  his  Nature  of  Gothic, 
the  fire  that  inflamed  the  heart  of  Morris,  burns  still, 
and  will  burn,  until  the  evils  of  our  industrial  civili- 
zation are  utterly  and  everlastingly  consumed. 

It  is  a  good  many  years  now  since  Carlyle  and  Rus- 
kin first  went  forth  to  combat  these  evils.  As  we  look 
out  upon  the  world  to-day,  a  world  still  bent  under 
the  wounds  and  burdens  of  a  frightful  war,  can  we  say 
with  any  truth  that  the  standard  under  which  they 
fought  has  gone  forward?  If  industry  was  large  in 
their  time,  it  has  expanded  to  dimensions  almost 
beyond  computation  now.  Material  progress  has 
advanced  with  ever  accelerating  speed,  until  whole 
continents  seem  to  be  like  nothing  so  much  as  vast 

1  Labor  in  the  Commonwealth,  220;  cj.  also  on  the  work  of  Morris,  Self- 
Government  in  Industry,  119-121,  280,  302.  As  to  the  ideaUsm  of  the 
Guild  Socialists  note  the  following  two  or  three  statements  out  of  scores: 
"The  case  for  Guild  Socialism  is  based  upon  an  unchanging  faith  that 
man's  motives  and  hopes,  freed  from  the  contamination  of  poverty,  will 
replenish  the  world  with  unsuspected  richness  and  variety  of  wealth  and 
life"  {National  Guilds,  211);  "Let  us  look  at  industry,  not  as  a  science 
apart,  but  as  a  vital  function  of  communal'life"  {Labor  in  the  Comrtion- 
zvealth,  33);  "Not  art  for  the  rich  or  the  poor,  not  art  for  art's  sake;  but 
the  spirit  of  the  true  and  the  beautiful  entering  into  our  industrial  life; 
production  no  longer  a  grinding  burden  but  a  pleasure,  limited  only  by 
Nature  and  our  necessities."     {Guild  Principles,  170.) 


HERALDS  OF  THE  BETTER  ORDER       323 

networks  of  manufacturing  systems,  woven  together 
to  minister  to  the  newly-created  necessities  or  luxu- 
ries of  congested  populations.  The  genius  and  energy 
of  man,  supported  by  the  factory  system  and  by 
machine  labor,  those  giant  offspring  of  the  industrial 
revolution,  are  rapidly  mastering  the  resources  of  the 
earth.  The  smoke  and  din  of  the  world's  workshops 
are  omnipresent,  and  the  m.orning  or  evening  march 
of  its  toilers  is  heard  in  every  ear. 

Out  of  the  darkness  and  confusion  of  these  times  in 
which  we  are  living,  are  there  no  lights  to  point  the 
way,  no  voices  lifted  for  social  justice  and  human 
fellowship?  There  are,  many  of  them,  as  wise  ob- 
servers know.  On  every  hand,  from  the  council 
rooms  of  capital,  from  the  debating  halls  of  labor, 
from  the  press,  from  the  pulpit,  from  club,  and 
school,  and  home,  everywhere,  even  from  the  as- 
semblies of  statesmen  met  to  restore  the  nations  to 
peace,  there  comes  the  word  that  the  present  order 
must  give  way  to  a  better  one.  And  although  differ- 
ent leaders  or  groups  place  the  emphasis  differently, 
the  full  meaning  of  this  message  is  fourfold: — the 
conservation,  at  all  costs,  of  the  human  factor  in 
industry;  increased  collective  control,  or  ownership, 
in  the  interest  of  a  vast  body  of  dependent  consumers; 
increased  partnership  of  labor  with  capital,  in  man- 
agement and  profits  of  industry,  tending  always 
towards  fuller  democratic  control  by  labor,  as  labor 
proves  its  capacity;  and,  finally  (last  to  come  but  of 
most  value  when  it  arrives),  the  opportunity  for 
expression  in  work  of  the  creative  impulse,  a  consum- 
mation which  will  set  the  worker  free  and  will  realize 


324  CARLYLE  AND  RUSKIN 

for  him  the  highest  gifts  of  life, — joy  and  fellowship 
in  daily  toil, — and  will  realize  for  society  a  genuine 
revival  of  art.  The  number  of  those  who  are  now 
thinking  of  this  program  and  striving  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  it  is  legion.  Fifty  and  more  years  ago  the 
number  was  few,  and  they  were  prophets.  None 
among  that  small  company  spoke  out  more  powerfully 
or  wisely  than  Carlyle  and  Ruskin.  For  with  all  their 
shortness  of  vision  in  some  directions,  they  saw  far 
more  clearly  than  the  majority  of  their  contempor- 
aries, and  they  set  forth  in  language  of  incomparable 
power,  what  was  coming  and  what  must  come.  They 
were,  in  truth,  heralds  of  the  better  order. 


APPENDIX 

Since  the  foregoing  chapters  were  written  and 
sent  to  press  there  have  come  into  the  writer's  hands 
three  small  commemorative  volumes  of  addresses, 
letters,  and  studies  in  connection  with  the  centenary 
of  Ruskin's  birth;  observed  by  a  public  meeting 
February  8,  191 9,  at  the  Royal  Society  of  Arts, 
London,  and  by  an  exhibition  of  his  drawings  at  the 
Royal  x^cademy  in  the  autumn  of  the  same  year. 
The  volumes  are:  Ruskin  Centenary  Addresses ,  edited 
by  J.  H.  Whitehouse,  Oxford  University  Press,  191 9; 
Ruskin  Centenary  Letters ^  edited  by  J.  H.  Whitehouse, 
Oxford  University  Press,  1919;  Ruskin  The  Prophet 
and  Other  Centenary  Studies ^  edited  by  J.  H.  White- 
house,  E.  P.  Dutton  and  Co.,  1920.  Among  many 
striking  tributes  in  these  volumes  to  Ruskin  as  a 
social  force,  the  following  may  be  quoted  as  per- 
haps the  most  notable: 

(i)  "A  great  deal  of  his  inspiration  came  from  Carlyie, 
but  it  was  changed  in  the  process,  passing  through  a  mind 
so  different  as  Ruskin's  was,  and  it  made  a  more  direct, 
sympathetic,  and  emotional  appeal  to  many  people  than 
the  same  fundamental  principles  had  made  when  they 
were  stated  with  the  fiercely  vigorous  abruptness  of  Car- 
lyie himself.  Perhaps  it  is  in  that  direction  that  he  has 
most  told  upon  what  I  may  call  the  younger  half  of  the 
generation  to  which  he  belonged.  The  older  half  of  the 
generation  to  which  most  of  us  here  belong  was  impressed 
chiefly  by  his  writings  upon  Art  and  upon  Nature,  but 
those  who  are  still  below  sixty  years  of  age  have  probably 

32s 


326  APPENDIX 

been  more  affected  by  his  ethical  teachings.  In  this 
respect  he  did  make  a  great  difference  to  his  time,  and 
has  been  the  parent  of  many  movements,  many  new 
currents  of  opinion,  which  have  been  playing  backwards 
and  forwards  over  the  face  of  the  country  during  the  last 
twenty-five  or  thirty  years."    (Lord  Bryce,  Addresses,  p.  5.) 

(2)  "It  is  as  an  interpreter,  not  of  art  but  of  life,  that 
he  now  stands.  Here  his  influence  has  been,  and  con- 
tinues to  be,  immense.  It  is  perhaps  greater,  so  far  at 
least  as  England  is  concerned,  than  that  of  any  other 
single  thinker  or  teacher.  His  social  doctrine  was  germi- 
nal: it  colors  the  whole  movement  of  modem  thought,  and 
shapes  the  whole  fabric  of  modern  practice.  .  .  .  Our 
whole  social  legislation,  and  the  whole  attitude  of  mind  of 
which  legislation  is  the  result,  have  since  followed,  halt- 
ingly and  fragmentarily,  the  principles  then  asserted  for 
the  first  time.  Nor  have  sixty  years  lessened  their  vital 
and  germinal  force.  Much  of  what  was  then  taken  for 
monstrous  paradox  has  become  accepted  truth,  the  mere 
commonplace  of  social  organization.  Much  more  still 
awaits  fulfilment,  and  remains  to  us  what  it  was  for  him, 
an  obscure  and  terrible  inspiration,  a  sound  of  trumpets 
in  the  night.  .  .  .  He  is  the  prophet  of  the  Socialist 
movement;  he  taught  its  leaders  and  inspired  their 
followers.  But  the  doctrines  of  Socialism,  whether  in 
its  bureaucratic  or  its  anarchic  form,  were  to  him  false  and 
even  deadly."     (J.  W.  Mackail,  Addresses,  pp.  1 1,  14,  21.) 

(3)  "Ruskin's  life  plan  includes  all  that  is  vital,  all 
that  is  real,  in  work  and  life  to-day.  His  influence  has 
permeated  the  whole  world  of  artistic  creativeness.  But 
what  was  perhaps  more  significant  still  to  me  was  the 
discovery  that  Ruskin  perceived  in  the  industrial  world 
of  his  day  the  premonitory  tremors  of  the  vast  upheaval 
which  now  threatens  the  whole  world,  the  whole  of 
civilization,  the  whole  of  our  life,  our  ideals,  our  religion, 
and  everything  else.  The  organization  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  have  been  living,  to  which  we  have  got  accus- 
tomed, is  being  shaken  to  its  very  foundations,  and  who 


APPENDIX  327 

knows  that  it  may  not  fall  in  ruins  about  us.  Yet  one 
cannot  feel,  or  think,  or  believe  that  it  is  going  to  fall  in 
ruins,  because  after  all,  although  Ruskin  foresaw  and 
foreshadowed  and  wrote  clearly  about  the  very  thing  that 
has  fallen  upon  us,  he  did  at  the  same  time  indicate  the 
cure  for  the  industrial  evil.  And  that  remedy  which  is  in 
our  own  hands  is,  briefly,  to  return  again  to  a  creative 
life,  to  individual,  collective,  and  co-operative  productiv- 
ity. We  must,  as  Carlyle  says,  'produce,  produce,  be  it 
but  the  infinitesimalist  product' — we  must  produce. 
Ruskin  never  wearied  of  reminding  us  that  there  is  no 
way  of  learning  all  and  quickly  about  anything  but  by 
the  labor  of  our  hands.  Years  before  Stanley  Hall,  his 
pupils,  and  other  American  wTiters  taught  that  muscular 
activity  influences  mental  growth,  Ruskin  was  teaching 
the  same  thing  more  beautifully,  and  therefore  perhaps 
more  truly.  Ruskin  shows  that  the  man  who  builds  his 
own  house,  tills  his  own  ground,  makes  his  own  furniture, 
has  more  wealth  and  more  essential  culture  than  he  who 
only  makes  fortunes  by  the  labors  of  others.  Workers 
have  learnt  by  Ruskin's  precept  and  their  own  practice 
that  the  basis  of  craftsmanship  is  vital  morality,  vital 
religion.  Creative  work  is  philosophy  in  being.  That 
is  why  the  great  teachers  of  the  world  have  all  been 
craftsmen.  .  .  . 

"It  has  occurred  to  me  to  suggest  that  of  all  the  schemes 
of  reconstruction  which  are  before  the  world  to-day, 
and  before  ourselves  in  particular,  the  most  promising 
are  those  schemes  which,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
are  giving  effect  to  Ruskin's  ideal  as  outlined  in  the  con- 
stitution of  St.  George's  Guild,  and  seek  to  plant  both  able 
and  disabled  soldiers  on  the  land  and  to  give  them  oppor- 
tunities of  craft  activity,  to  help  them  to  make  a  happy, 
productive,  and  real  life  for  themselves,  and  in  so  doing  to 
give  to  England  again  some  degree  of  that  beauty  of 
creative  activity  which  she  possessed  in  the  earlier  periods 
of  her  history.  The  scheme  of  the  St.  George's  Guild 
might  well  now  be  carried  into  effect,  with  the  aid  and 


328  APPENDIX 

help  of  all  artists  and  craftsmen  of  to-day,  the  help  of  the 
Art  Workers'  Guild,  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Society  and 
other  handicraft  societies,  and  the  Royal  Academy,  If 
all  artists  would  combine  to  urge  upon  all  the  authorities 
the  necessity  of  establishing  at  least  a  few  real,  recon- 
structed, reconstituted  villages,  towns,  districts,  whatever 
limitation  you  may  prefer,  if  they  would  urge  the  recon- 
struction of  some  few  centres,  however  small  at  first 
matters  not,  in  which  the  soldiers  who  are  returning  from 
the  front,  wounded  and  sound,  could  settle  and  live  a 
rational,  Ruskinian,  and  therefore  natural  life,  then  real 
effect  might  be  given  to  Ruskin's  ideal  of  a  new  order  of 
production,  and  his  three  graces,  his  three  beauties  of  life, 
his  three  cardinal  virtues,  admiration,  hope,  and  love, 
might  again  flower  among  the  ruins  of  the  world  and 
something  would  have  been  done  to  heal  the  wounds 
which  war  has  made."  (Henry  Wilson,  President  of  the 
Arts   and   Crafts   Exhibition   Society,   Addresses^   28-29; 

32-33-) 

(4)  "To-day  official  recognition  is  given  to  the  princi- 
ples Ruskin  expounded.  Codes  have  been  widened, 
and  although  much  progress  has  yet  to  be  made  in  con- 
nexion with  our  whole  system  of  national  education,  that 
which  has  taken  place  is  precisely  on  the  lines  which  Rus- 
kin laid  down.  He  urged,  for  instance,  so  far  back  as 
1857  that  drawing  should  be  taught  as  an  integral  branch 
of  education.  He  pleaded  for  the  inclusion  of  music  and 
noble  literature  as  essential  things  in  education.  He  de- 
sired that  all  schools  in  themselves  should  be  beautiful. 
He  desired  to  form  standards  of  taste  and  judgment  by 
surrounding  children  with  beautiful  things.  He  fought 
against  the  idea  that  education  was  something  to  be  con- 
fined to  class-rooms  or  in  buildings,  and  he  made  a  noble 
plea  for  the  value  of  the  outdoor  life  and  scenes  of  natural 
beauty  in  all  schemes  of  education.  All  these  expressions 
of  educational  principles  have  been  in  part  at  least  realized. 
The  bare  and  ugly  school-rooms  of  the  past  are  replaced 
by  buildings  furnished  in  many  cases  on  the  lines  indicated 


APPENDIX  329 

by  Ruskin.  Pictures,  sculpture,  color,  architecture,  are 
realized  to  be  great  instruments  of  education.  Drawing 
was  made  a  compulsory  subject  in  elementary  schools 
in  1890.  Even  the  introductions  issued  by  the  Board  of 
Education  to  the  various  editions  of  their  code  now  give 
expression  for  the  guidance  of  school  managers  to  the 
Ruskinian  views  we  have  set  forth.  .  .  .  Ruskin's  teach- 
ing in  this  connexion  (i.  e.,  handicrafts)  has  made  steady 
headway  in  our  educational  life.  Most  of  the  develop- 
ments on  the  lines  of  his  teaching,  so  far  as  younger 
children  are  concerned,  have  taken  place  in  the  secondary 
schools  of  England  and  Scotland.  .  .  .  No  teacher  before 
Ruskin  had  been  so  successful  in  the  ultimate  appeal  which 
he  made  to  unlettered  people.  Some  educational  thinkers 
had  taught  some  of  the  things  Ruskin  taught  and  before 
he  wrote.  But  they  made  no  popular  appeal.  Ruskin's 
strength,  after  all,  came  from  the  fact  that  he  appealed  to 
the  conscience  of  the  entire  nation.  The  widest  response 
to  his  appeal  came  from  the  working  classes.  They  have 
always  been  the  greatest  readers  of  his  books.  His  lan- 
guage made  to  them  something  of  the  same  popular  appeal 
as  did  the  prose  of  the  Bible  to  an  earlier  age."  (John 
Howard  Whitehouse,  Addresses,  50-51,  55,  64.) 

(5)  "The  close  connection  of  the  decay  of  art  with 
faulty  social  arrangements  was  his  great  discovery. 
Ugliness  in  the  works  of  man  is  a  symptom  of  disease  in 
the  State.  This  was  Ruskin's  conviction,  and  we  may 
call  it  his  discovery.  ...  As  an  art-critic  he  had  taught 
that  beauty  is  fundamentally  a  matter  of  right  values,  and 
that  all  ugliness  has  its  root  in  a  false  or  mean  or  vulgar 
standard  of  values.  But  conduct  also  is  determined  by  our 
standard  of  values,  which  alone  gives  life  its  meaning.  If 
our  values  are  perverted,  our  social  order,  in  which  our 
notions  of  good  and  evil  express  themselves,  will  be 
perverse  and  bad,  and  there  will  be  no  beauty  in  what 
we  do  or  in  what  we  make."    (Dean  Inge,  Studies,  25,  26.) 

(6)  "If  to-day  Labor  leaders  and  social  reformers  in 
general  are  quite  as  keenly  set  upon  reducing  the  hours 


330  APPENDIX 

of  labor  and  otherwise  diminishing  the  pressure  of  the 
machine  upon  the  man  who  tends  it,  we  have  to  thank 
men  Hke  Ruskin  and  Morris  for  much  of  this  revolt.  Not 
even  yet  have  psychologists  succeeded  in  making  us 
recognize  the  amount  of  vital  damage  done  by  setting 
men  and  women  to  spend  most  of  their  time  and  energy 
in  some  single  narrow  routine — not  merely  the  painful 
fatigue  and  conscious  or  unconscious  atrophy  of  other 
productive  capacities,  but  the  narrowing  of  the  capacity 
for  enjoyment  which  comes  from  this  over-specialization. 
Not  more  productivity,  but  more  liberty  from  industry, 
should  be  the  chief  demand  of  humanist  reformers  to-day, 
and  they  should  boldly  announce  the  gospel  of  Ruskin  as 
theirs.  .  .  .  Tivie  and  Tide  and  Fors  are  full  of  suggestions 
keenly  prophetic  of  the  new  social-economic  order  which 
is  even  now  pressing  through  the  broken  shell  of  the 
nineteenth-century  individualism.  Skilled  manual  labor, 
with  the  apparent  exception  of  agriculture,  he  relegates  to 
a  guild  system  not  very  different  from  the  Guild  Socialism 
which  to-day  appears  in  many  quarters  to  be  displacing 
both  the  traditional  Trade  Unionism  and  the  State 
Socialism  of  last  century.  ...  In  economic,  as  in  educa- 
tional reform,  he  was  no  barren  prophet  of  denunciation, 
but  a  true  leader  towards  a  land  of  promise.  Long  before 
scientific  pedagogy  had  worked  out  the  psychology  of  the 
relations  between  brain  and  hand  work,  Ruskin  had 
recognized  their  fundamental  importance  and  had  de- 
manded the  union  of  the  workshop  and  the  schoolroom. 
When  nature  and  art,  in  any  real  sense,  were  taboo  in  our 
schools,  he  exposed  their  vital  value,  not  merely  or  mainly 
as  subjects  in  a  curriculum,  but  as  pervasive  and  suggestive 
influences  in  the  atmosphere  of  education.  A  minimum 
wage  based  upon  the  wholesome-  maintenance  of  the 
worker  and  his  family,  a  shorter  working  day,  the  housing 
problem,  the  revival  of  rural  life,  and  such  specific  reforms 
as  smoke  abatement  and  the  prevention  of  river  pollution, 
owe  an  immense  and  often  unrecognized  debt  to  Ruskin's 
early  advocacy."    (J.  A.  Hobson,  Studies,  92,  94,  96.) 


INDEX 


Abbot  Samson,  99,  103 

Allen,  George,  262,  268-270,  313 

Alton  Lockf,  309 

Aristotle,  152 

Arnold,  Matthew,  89,  96,  291,  301, 

312 
Arts  and  Crafts  Movement,  319, 

321 
Ashbee,  C.  R.,  320 
Ashley,  Lord,  19,  36 
Atkinson,  Blanche,  278 
Austin,  John,  45 

Bagehot,  Walter,  33,  297 

Baker,  George,  279 

Barker,  Ernest,  315 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  29,  30,  45,  65, 

170,  201,  298 
Blanc,~Louis,  46 
Bowring,  John,  45 
Bright,  John,  48,  174 
Brown,  Ford  Madox,  261 
Browning,  Robert,  141 
Buller,  Charles,  45,  308,  309 
Bulwer-Lytton,  E.  G.,  21 
Burke,  Edmund,  165,  305 
Burne-Jones,  Edward,  135,  261 
Burns,  Robert,  73,  78 

Caird,  Edward,  305,  306 
Carlyle,  (Mrs.)  Jane  Welsh,  129, 

143 
Carlyle,  Thomas;  the  new  era, 
41-43;  social  interest,  43-50; 
new  era  described,  50-54;  the 
poor,  54-57;  the  rich,  57-58; 
attitude  and  position,  59-63; 
materialism  of  new  age,  63-67; 
effects,  68-70;  rise  of  democracy 
or  revolt  of  masses,  70-73;  inter- 


pretation of  democracy: — (fa- 
vorable), 73-78;  (unfavorable), 
78-85.     (Chapter  II.) 

Reform  of  individual  the  basis 
of  all  reform,  86-90;  conception 
of  morality,  91;  religion,  92; 
gospel  of  work,  93-95;  hero- 
worship,  96-102;  new  chivalry 
of  labor,  103-107;  organization 
of  labor,  107-110;  new  human 
relations,  111-112;  wages,  112; 
education,  113-114;  permanence 
of  status,  1 1 5-1 16;  co-operation, 
116;  government-control,  117- 
123;  the  new  society  of  the  fu- 
ture, 123-124;  the  gifted,  125- 
127.     (Chapter  III.) 

Retirement  from  literary 
work,  128;  contrast  with  Ruskin^ 
129-130;  relations  with  Ruskin, 
141-145;  influence  upon  Ruskin, 
146;  liken£SS  ta, Ruskin,  146- 
147^  TChapter  IV.) 

Social  philosophy  compared 
with  Ruskin's,  291-298;  con- 
trasted with  Ruskin's,  299-301; 
influence  of,  301-312.  (Chapter 
VIII.) 

Cash  payment,  69,  1 1 1 

Cavaignac,  Godfroi,  46 

Cazamian,  Louis,  22 

Cambridge  Inaugural  Address,  235 

Cestus  of  Aglaia,  219 

Chapman,  S.  J.,  5,  13 

Characteristics,  61,  III,  120 

Chartism  (Carlj'le's  Essay),  62,  71, 
100,  108,  no,  112,  114,  119,  120, 
296,  297,  302 

Chartism,  38,  42,  50,  59,  72,  77 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  10,  187 


331 


332 


INDEX 


Chesterton,  G.  K.,  307,  316 

Child-labor,  17 

Christian  Socialism,  245,  309 

Clough,  A.  H.,  301 

Cobbett,  William,  33,  36,  37 

Cobden-Sanderson,  T.  J.,  319 

Cole,  G.  D.  H.,  321,  322 

Combination  Laws,  23,  35,  36,  39 

Contemporary  Review,  169 

Cook,  Sir  E.  C,  134,  140,  277,  279, 

280,  313 
Cornhill  Magazine,  139,  312 
Crane,  Walter,  319 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  85,  98 

Dante,  54,  56,  141,  165,  187,  233 

Defoe,  Daniel,  6 

Dial,  The,  305 

Dickens,  Charles,  20,  21,  291,  301, 

309.  310 
Disraeli,    Benjamin,   20,   21,   249, 

291 
Dixon,  Thomas,  139 
Downs,  David,  280 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  33 

Education  Act,  302 

Eliot,  George,  291 

Emerson,    Ralph   Waldo,   47,   61, 

270,  305.  308 
Enclosures,  16 
Engels,  Friedrich,  18,  19,  20,  24,  25 

Fabian  Society,  302,  316 

Factory  Acts,  35,  39,  302 

Factory  System,  15 

Fleming,  Albert,  285,  286 

Fors  Clavigera,  8,  140,  141,  143, 
150,  152,  17s,  177,  187,  188,  189, 
203,  231,  268,  273,  283,  292,  316 

Forster,  W.  E.,  310 

Frase/s  Magazine,  139 

Frederick  the  Great,  98,  144,  145 

Frederick  the  Great,  History  of,  62 

French  Revolution,  The,  62,  71,  74, 
309,  310 


French  Revolution,  75-77,  82, 102, 

144 
Froude,  J.  A.,  63,  99,   139,  145, 

146,  270,  307,  309 
Furnivall,  F.  J.,  261,  312 

Garnett,  Richard,  307 

Gaskell,  Dr.,  5,  8,  13,  19 

Gaskell,  Mrs.  E.  C,  20,  21,  291 

Geddes,  Patrick,  316 

George,  Henry,  302,  316 

Giotto,  187,  233,  286 

Goethe,  J.  W.,  97,  122 

Grote,  George,  29,  309 

Guild  of  Handicraft,  320 

Guild  Socialism,  320-322 

Guy,  John,  280 

Harrison,  Frederic,  141,  180,  184, 

312 
Heroes  and  Hero-Worship,  62,  97, 

100,  144 
Hill,  Octavia,  266-267,  312,  313 
Hobson,  H.  G.,  321 
Hobson,  J.  A. ,33,  196,  25s,  314,  3 IS 
Hodges,  Frank,  314 
Homer,  131,  187,  252 
Hume,  Joseph,  39,  46 
Hunt,  Holman,  135 

Irving,  Edward,  43,  45,  47 

Jeffrey,  Francis  (Lord),  26,  46 
Jevons,  Stanley,  171,  316 
Johnson,  Samuel,  73,  99 
Jowett,  Benjamin,  305 

Kingsley,    Charles,    20,    21,    245, 

291,  308,  309,  311 
Kitchin,  G.  W.,  264 

Laissez-faire,  26,  66,  67,  82,  107, 
138,  170,  293,  294,  302,  305 

Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  60,  62,  71, 
102,  107,  114,  117,  122,  124-125, 
144-145 


INDEX 


333 


Lccky,  W.  E.  H.,  99,  296,  305 

Leeds  Guardian,  140 

Livy,  130 

Lockhart,  J.  G.,  187 

Luther,  Martin,  76,  98,  99,  297 

Macadam,  J.  L.,  12 

Macaulay,  T.   B.,  Lord,  53,  297, 

309 
MacCunn,  John,  304 
Mackail,  J.  T.,  180,  311,  317,  319 
Maine,  Sir  Henr\-,  297 
Malthus,  T.  R.,  30,  31,  32,  33,  66, 

139,  170 
Manchester  Examiner,  140 
Martineau,  Harriet,  33 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  245,  261,  308,  309, 

312 
Marx,  Karl,  18,  302,  316 
Mazzini,  Joseph,  46,  295,  297,  304 
Meredith,  George,  55 
Michael  Angelo,  157 
Mill,  James,  29,  39 
Mill,  J.  S.,  29,  33,  45,  170,  171, 

184,  295,  296,  297,  303,  304,  306, 

307,  308,  309 
Millais,  J.  E.,  135 
Milton,  John,  165,  290,  305 
Modern    Painters,    133-136,-  138, 

I39»   150.    152.    179.    189.    258, 

270 
Molesworth,  Sir  William,  45,  309 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  311 
Morley,  John,  Lord,  307 
Morris,  William,  11,  135,  180,  288, 

311,  314,  316-322 
Munera   Pulveris,    139,    142,    146, 

165,  187,  188,  189,  202,  316 
Mystery  of  Life  and  Its  Arts,  243 

Napoleon,  14,  41,  78,  85,  98 
Newcastle,  Duke  of,  27 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  49 
O'Connor,  Feargus,  296 
Orage,  A.  R.,  320 


Owen,  Robert,  18,  19,  36,  37,  38, 

47 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine , 

311 

Past  and  Present,  62,  71,  101-107, 
III,  113,  114,  116,  117,  119, 
120,    125,    127,    144,    271,    273, 

304,  30s 
Peel,  Sir  Robert,  35,  125,  297 
Penty,  A.  J.,  320,  321 
Philosophical  Radicalism,  29 
Place,  Francis,  17,  22,  25,  27,  29, 

32.  33.  36,  37.  38 
Plato,  187,  213,  253 
Political  Economy  of  Art,  231,  234 
Porter,  G.  R.,  13 
Pre-Raphaelites,  135 
Praterita,  130,  131 
Progress  and  Poverty,  302 

Queen  of  the  Air,  176 

Rawnsley,  Canon,  263 
Reade,  Charles,  20,  21,  291 
Reform    Bill    (1832),    37,   42,  71, 

102 
Reformation,  Protestant,  75 
Reminiscences  (Carlyle's),  145 
Ricardo,    David,    30,    31,    32,    33, 

170,  173,  174 
Rogers,  Samuel,  135 
Rose,  J.  H.,  297 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  135,  140,  261 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  298 
Ruskin,  John;  boyhood  and  early 
education,   131-132;  interest  in 
Turner,  133-134;  art-critic,  135; 
transition  to  political  economy, 
I3S~I39>       encouragement       of 
Carlyle,  141-142;  their  personal 
relations,    i.;j-i45;    likeness    to 
Carlyle,  146-148.  (Chapter  IV.) 
Relation    of  art   to    political 
economy,    149-150;    analysis   of 
beauty,  151-154;  relation  of  art 


334 


INDEX 


to  moral  life  In  the  individual 
and  in  the  nation,  I_i;4-iq7; 
architecture  as  an  expression  of 
national  life,  157-161;  art  and 
environment,  162-163;  ugliness 
in  modern  world,  164-169; 
assault  upon  political  economy, 
170-174;  gives  up  art  for  social 
reform,  175-178.    (Chapter  V.) 

Art  as  clue  to  social  reform, 
179-181;  modern  worker  a 
machine,  182-184;  creative  as 
opposed  to  mechanical  industry, 
185-186;  writings  in  political 
economy,  187-189;  political 
economy  defined,  189-190; 
wealth,  190-191;  wages,  192- 
196;  human  factor  in  industry 
and  the  new  political  economy, 
196-202.    (Chapter  VI.) 

Purity  of  birth,  204;  educa- 
tion, 205-211;  effects  of  educa- 
tion upon  station  in  life,  211- 
212;  servile  labor,  213-223; 
landed  aristocracy,  224;  land 
question,  225-228;  great  mer- 
chants, 228-230;  organization 
of  industry,  231-232;  guilds, 
233-240;  function  of  the  State, 
241-244;  socialism,  245-246; 
equality,  246-247;  distrust  of 
popular  government,  248-250; 
two  classes  in  society,  governors 
and  governed,  251-252;  form  of 
government,  253;  individual  re- 
form the  basis  of  social  reform, 

254-257 

Passion  for  practice,  258-260; 
working  men's  college,  260-262; 
Hinksey  Diggers,  262-265;  street 
cleaning,  265;  tea-shop,  266; 
model  landlordism,  266-267; 
publishing,  268-270;  St.  George's 
Guild,  271-288.    (Chapter  VII.) 

Social  philosophy  compared 
with    Carlyle's,    291-298;    con- 


trasted with  Carlyle's,  299-301; 

influence  of,  312-322.    (Chapter 

VIII.) 
Ruskin,  John  James,  130,  143 
Russell,  Lord  John,  297 
Rydings,  E.,  284-285 

Sartor  Resartus,  42,  44,  61,  62,  73, 

100,  144,  145,  293,  304 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  131,  252 
Senior,  Nassau,  34 
Sesame  and  Lilies,  140 
Seven  Lamps  of  ^Architecture,  134, 

158,  179 
Severn,  Arthur,  266 
Shaw,  Bernard,  316 
Shakespeare,  William,  131 
Shooting  Niagara,  62,  72,  I14 
Signs  of  the  Times,  43,  61 
Simon,  St.,  43-44 
Smillie,  Robert,  314 
Smith,  Adam,  10,  29,  30,  31,  170, 

174,  201,  298 
Spencer,  Herbert,  297 
Spenser,  Edmund,  187 
Stephen,    James    Fitzjames,    297, 

307 
Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  30,  243,  306 
Sterling,  John,  308 
Stones  of  Fejiice,  134,  158,  180 
Survey,  The,  314 
Swift,  Jonathan,  165 

Tennyson,  Alfred  Lord,  141,  291 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  139,  291 
Thomson,  George,  286 
Time  and  Tide,  139,  187,  189,  203, 

312  _ 
Tolstoi,  Lyof,  154 
Toynbee,  Arnold,  27,  35,  264,  265, 

312  • 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  133,  134,  165 

Unto  This  Last,  136,  138,  139,  140, 
142,  188,  189,  202,  231,  312,  313, 
314,316,317 


INDEX  335 

Virgil,  165  Whistler,  J.  M.,  259 

Voltaire,  97  Wordsworth,  William,  4,    11,  78, 

89,  154.  285 
Walpole,  Spencer,  20,  25,  28  Working  Men's  College,  138,  187, 

Webb,   Sidney   and    Beatrice,   24,  211,    251,    260-262,    268,    281, 

302  312 


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